mpschaefer

I wanted a Newton for a long time and managed to buy an OMP second-hand not long after the Newton was discontinued. I played with it for 2 weeks before buying a MessagePad 2000 second-hand. I used it continually through to 2010 making it the longest lasting device I’ve ever had.

When I first got it I was at University and used it for notes ands assignments and even taught the hand-writing engine the C language so I could hand-write my code. I featured it in my final year project designing a rocket-bootstrapping module as the future direction the research and development should be heading so the whole system would be more portable.

I continued to use it during my working-career, even after a manager had instructed me to stop using it because it was embarrassing to have an employee using it in front of clients. It served me well as a Calendar, Contacts and Notes machine for that period right through to 2010 when it was finally replaced with a iPhone 3GS.

To this day, my MessagePad 2000 still sits on the shelf above my desk in my home office and I was a regular lurker on the NewtonTalk mailing list until sometime after I had switched to iOS and they had a system issue and lost my membership. 

I wish the Einstein Project had succeeded in delivering the Newton OS to modern hardware as I still to this day miss using it, the iOS has never quite captured the feeling I had using the Newton. However, the fading backlight and grey-scale screen made it more and more difficult to read the screen.

I continue to search out different apps to provide suitable hand-writing recognition to the iPad, and think we are getting pretty close to hacking the ability to write notes with decent recognition again.

I won’t end up being the guy who gets buried with his Newton but I’m probably never going to get rid of it either.

herodotus said:

Sad. Most people who buy laptops for business and general use buy 15” laptops and now Apple has made them unaffordable and added capabilities most users don’t need or want while removing feature like hdmi, MagSafe, functions keys (touch bar is stupid) and USB-a that people need and they still have the worst most unreliable keyboard in the industry. Customers want a 15”laptop, 4 core, Intel only gpus. Now apple does not have an affordable 15” laptop. I am buying an dell XPS and running win10 and unbuntu. Apple just lost a customer. John ivy and tim should be fired for ruining the MacBook family. Apple is brain dead stupid. Steve jobs is crying in his grave,

Strange. I must be looking at a different Apple Website.

For the same price I paid for a 2017 15" MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD, I can now buy a 2018 15" MacBook Pro with 32GB RAM and 2TB SSD. 

Not sure how it became more unaffordable with the 2018 release. 

Nice review. My thoughts after a number of months with my 2017 MBP, are very similar 

I decided to be proactive about the keyboard and installed a keyboard cover the day I got it. Whether it will save me from issue I cannot be sure but it has highlight how much debris my bad habit of eating in front of my laptop results in. 

I really like TouchID so I’d hate to loose that for FaceID. Each account uses a different finger so I can switch users really quickly and simply. 

The dongle discussion I always  found interesting as I realised even with my old 2012 MBP I virtually never plug anything in anymore. 

I bought one do all portable hub, a lightning cable and one USB-A adapter for times when I cannot be bothered with the hub. Ok, I spent $200 on these things and one could argue that’s a problem but it’s not like connectivity hasn’t changed previously. 

I bought a USB Serial Adapter when Serial went the way of the Dodo. Just like I did with eSata, PC Card, parallel ports and incompatible Dell docking stations on the PC side. 

Overall, I’d still recommend it although unless your in a rush wait for the next refresh. 

Given the prevalence of Wireless Earphones and Charging, if I was truly up to something I would simply fill the Lightning Port with glue and remove the ability to use USB Mode for anything with the phone.

Of course that wouldn't stop them cracking open the unit and patching in on the circuit board side but they are having to invest quite bit of effort to get started at that point.

I haven't used FaceID yet.

But, I would love for TouchID to make it to the Desktop Macs. Having two user accounts (one for Work and one for Non-Work) on the same machine it's nice to simply log in or switch users by using one finger or the other when logging in.

Not sure how my one face will be able to do that.....