Second Post-Apple Newton Life? 168
An anonymous reader with a lot of time on his hands writes "As seen on Slashdot b e f o r e, the Newton refuses to die. Since Apple discontinued it, it got ATA, WiFi, Bluetooth, Zeroconf and even a NES emulator. Now, several Mac news sites r e p o r t, Newton users founded an association with John Sculley, who pushed the Newton at Apple, as its honorary president. They're organizing a conference in Paris in September. How long until all these users switch to new hardware?"
Why should they switch to new hardware? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think of the Newton like the NES - the games on the NES were great, and are still very popular (take the recent GameBoy Advance NES special edition). The NES formed the basis of many great consoles to come. But even though the NES is still a great machine (like the Newton), I probably would prefer to play on a PlayStation. Although, the flaw in this (rather basdly though out) analogy between the Newton and the NES would be one of them sold extremely well...
How Long? (Score:4, Insightful)
Upgrade to what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny how... (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how the lousy 1 character links (Thanks Michael!!! not) are just 2 stories above a story about lousy UI design. Go figure.
What ever happened to letting us know where the links to go? For some reason, I have a feeling that single character links are not what Tim Berners-Lee had in mind for this thing.
This is one thing apple did right (Score:2, Insightful)
One word. (Score:4, Insightful)
Amiga.
Look at how long the Amiga fans have been holding onto that platform. If it wasn't for them, I would probably no longer remember what an Amiga even was. Same can be said for OS/2 - look at eComStation. Great products tend to outlast vendor interest.
Re:Why should they switch to new hardware? (Score:5, Insightful)
This also brings up another issue......Since Apple has left the PDA market, how much innovation has occurred? Color screens perhaps, but what else?
Re:Why do People Continue to Use the Newton? (Score:1, Insightful)
Um...Palm?
why does Apple continue to shun these users when there is clearly a market for an new Apple handheld computing device?
Economics
Re:Why should they switch to new hardware? (Score:4, Insightful)
Your comparison of the Newton to the Nintendo Entertainment System is insightful, but the greater flaw in your analogy is that Nintendo released later generations of the NES, i.e. the Super Nintendo, N64, and GameCube. You can play the GameCube instead of the Sony Playstation, but you can't use an iNewton2 instead of a Sony Clie.
Nintendo took the market share it had established with the original NES, and then channeled it into the Super Nintendo, another successful console. Even now, almost two decades since I first player Super Mario Brothers, I can play Super Mario Sunshine on the Gamecube.
Apple, on the other hand, has apparently squandered the lead it had with handhelds. Apple had (and amazingly, still has) an ardent user base for the Newton. Steve must realize this. Therefore, although Apple has a lot on its plate right now, I would not be surprised to see a resurrection of the Newton ("iNewton", "iPalm", etc), or for the iPod to evolve into a machine with handheld-like functionality.
Switch to new hardware! Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering the number of Amiga fan sites, and people that still use Amigas - not any time soon.
cluge
AnygryPeopleRule
Everyone should experience a Newton... (Score:3, Insightful)
Most computer users have gotten very used to the windows/mac/gnome/kde/cde/etc way of doing things. Sure, they all look different, but I'll bet you can figure out the basics and successfully get general user-level stuff after a little aclimitization. It's all the same ideas in different skins.
The Newton interface is different. Whether you love it or hate it, it's still interesting to see that there are other ways of doing things.
Why not produce NEW hardware (Score:3, Insightful)
They created the market, if they only had the patience to stick it out
You really cant replace a Newt with the dismal offerings of today. It was designed from the ground up as a handheld device, what we have today uses desktop OS's grafted onto a palm sized device...
Re:Why should they switch to new hardware? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is natural progression, not innovation. I think you're confusing theese two things.
Re:Why do People Continue to Use the Newton? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, exactly, should Newton "have died years ago"? You buy a product to satsify a need. If the product satisfies that need, and continues to do so, why stop using it?
Most of us have literally bought into the notion that only the latest, greatest version of a product can possibly meet our needs. Along with that comes the idea that only a product that's actively supported by its manufacturer is suitable for use. We're "consumers" because we buy a thing and use it until it's all used up -- we "consume" it -- and then we go buy another thing. This is great for an industry whose financial health is based on "upgrades." If we didn't all go buy new computers every few years, the computer industry would be in much worse shape than it is. But it's not necessarily in our own best interests.
Newton is a case where a product designed well and implemented well served its purpose well, and continues to do so. The manufacturer no longer supports it, but that doesn't really make a difference to those for whom Newton currently works.
If Nokia suddenly went out of business, would you instantly run out and buy a new phone? If Palm went belly-up, would you trash your Tungsten and buy something else? And if you would, why?
Re:iPods already have PDA-like functionality (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How Long? (Score:3, Insightful)
After seeing the hate and grudge that Jobs still have against Scully I thing Steve Jobs simply don't wants to hear about the Newton. That device is Scully's baby and Jobs wants the thing to remain dead. The first thing he did when he returned to Apple was to kill the project and I suspect that this choice wasn't only a business rational decision. I admire Jobs but for what I have read about him I can say that he purposely missed in the past some business opportunities simply based of is personal preferences.
Re:How much would it cost? (Score:4, Insightful)
And if they didn't do that? If they just reintroduced it at it's original specs? Wouldn't the price be lower since the hardware is older and hopefully cheap by now?