Apple Inc, which helped spawn the PDA market with its Newton MessagePad line in the early ’90s, plans to give the concept another go with a modern day reincarnation of the old fan favorite based on the company’s new mutli-touch technology.
It appears that Jobs and Co. never gave up hope, and instead returned to the drawing board. For the past 18 months, well-respected sources tell AppleInsider, a small team of Apple engineers have been at it again, this time tapping the company’s revolutionary multi-touch technology as a foundation.
Externally, the mutil-touch PDA has been described by sources as an ultra-thin “slate” akin to the iPhone, about 1.5 times the size and sporting an approximate 720×480 high-resolution display that comprises almost the entire surface of the unit. The device is further believed to leverage multi-touch concepts which have yet to gain widespread adoption in Apple’s existing multi-touch products — the iPhone and iPod touch — like drag-and-drop and copy-and-paste.
Makes sense – if the UPC market actually exists beyond folks switching from PDA’s.
Does that mean they’re also going to do a remake of the Pippin?
Nostradumbass predicts: every applefan that buys one will complain two months later when the price gets cut by a third. 🙂
Hasn’t this all been completely and utterly debunked by many sites already? How many times does the Newton have to “be in redevelopment”?
If you believe crap like this it’s been a shadow project for 10 years! Since it was canceled!
Poor journalism.
I’ve read that Jobs hated the Newton, and one of the first things he did was kill it in his second coming. Processing and battery power are still to limited for wide spread acceptance of these devices.
The iPhone and iPod Touch may evolve into a very powerful form factor containing all the capabilities (and more) once associated with the Newton. Such an innovative strategy allows Steve to succeed where his predecessors failed — sans ever reviving the Jobs reviled Newton.
#4,
That is easily rectified with thin-client tech and 3g capability. Also, at that point you get a bunch more hours of use.
Look at Wyse’s new laptop thin-client if you want to see where the technology is heading. No fans, no hard drive, just hours of mobile computing use (as long as you can get 3g or wifi, which is everywhere you would want to computer) . It is ruggest AND light (3lbs) and has the power of whatever computer you connect it to.
But other than that… OMG the PDA is dead dead dead. I work with PDA’s and I say that. They are good for a few specific uses, but outside of that they haven’t improved much on the yellow pad and pen. My work would buy me any PDA I wanted today, and still I don’t have one.
I bet we have not seen everything yet. I would like Apple to open up the iPod Touch for ‘development’.
And then stand back and see what happens!
To quote the Simpsons episode Lisa On Ice:
Kearney: Hey Dolph, take a memo on your Newton: beat up Martin.
[Dolph writes “Beat up Martin” which the Newton translates as “Eat up Martha”]
Bah! [throws Newton]
Martin: [being bonked on the head with the Newton] Ow!
and here is what apple came up with
http://www.nokiausa.com/770
#11,
I recently tried out a treo… And I have decided I am sticking with t9 for my IM needs. I have decided that the oyPhone was a failure, not because of the oyPhone, but because the whole smart phone idea is well… dumb. The more I see of this class of device, the less I like it. Even with over the top engineering like on the oyPhone… It is still basically just an IM device.
This post is from my desktop computer.
What people outside of the business don’t understand is that companies like Apple frequently produce products in house not for consumers, but to be consumed in house by other development teams.
The touch-based Mac rumors were around long before the iPhone, and they’ll be around for a long time after. The PDA isn’t dying… it’s dead…
… much like the opinions of GregA and Pedro. Why are you two still here? Mom’s basement getting lonely?
Ah, I still have my Newton 2100. This made me sentimental so I got it out and it still works like a charm. I am still amazed by how cool it was (once it learned your handwriting).
It was ahead of its time. A few things still needed to be invented or vastly improved. One, a good color touch sensitive screen. Two, increased power with longer battery life. Three, serious storage space. Four, reduced weight and size. Five, improvement of the data entry means. And six, the really big one, wireless internet connectivity.
All of these things are now easily done. I say that the iPhone will evolve into a successor to the Newton. And it will be a huge seller. Imagine a Mac in your pocket with handwriting & voice recognition that really works (thanks to many years of development).
And iTouch would be a nice addition to any follow up to the Newton.
However, I seriously doubt Apple with resurrect the Newton brand name. I sure they would come up with a new “i-xxxx” name for it. It would sure beat lugging around a laptop.
#16,
Its funny that you are nostalgic for that. I already have all that in a PDA, the ones I service in my job. Top notch handwriting recognition that works faster than I can write, in cursive, whole words at a time. Amazing vibrant color, wifi and 3g, a laser scanner with character recognizer more than a full days battery charge.
In the showroom, when the sales rep wants to set up a new customer, they point the laser at the customers id badge, and scan, all the data entry is automatic. Then they just scan the upc of the items they are selling, and enter a quantity. They write in any special handling or billing issues, and ‘submit’ the order and a hard copy is printed out.
Problem is the only use I have found for them is the sales people. They take showroom orders with them. In the field they just use laptop computers. As I understand, Apples sales rep use the same model with the same software stack I use.
Oh it runs windows mobile. Heh, you thought the iPhone was expensive.
GregA, yeah, I was with you right up to the point about using a laptop on the road. I want a consumer product that I can take with me on motorcycle trips and still be able to surf my news sites with live video once I arrive. I would love to see it integrated with GPS so I could check routes in real time as well.
I have no real need for a PDA. Post-It notes and my cell phone work fine for me there. I simply want a pocket Mac (which the iPhone has the capability to eventually become). Call me a fanboy, I guess.
If I were a betting man, I would think that the next step for the iPhone will be the addition of iChat. That would make it the first functional consumer two-way video phone with a built-in industry standard (I think). That would push the iPhone to the next level of “gottahavit” gadget.
Porting iChat should be a snap but the camera would have to be reversed to point at the user (easily done). I expect that to happen before any Newton-like device appears.
#19
Oh I agree, don’t buy from the current offering of thin-client laptops. wait until the OLED devices becomes available and consumer friendly. Then you are talking less than a pound and even more battery life.
Sony is supposed to release an OLED tv this fall or winter, so I expect the first OLED thin-client laptops next year sometime.
#16 you hit it right on the head!
“And it will be a huge seller. Imagine a Mac in your pocket with handwriting & voice recognition that really works (thanks to many years of development).”
I want a dozen
1995 was famous for one huge breaktrhough in software developement, that changed the world; Newton OS 2.0. Apple got an award to prove it too. I had (have) the Newt 130 that looks like a dog chewed on it, it just got a lot of use on construction sites (installing A/V equipment). I still use the Newt 2100 mainly because it records speech that can later be transcribed to Chinese and faxed over.
The new iNewt would be awsome but it probably wont be a PDA 🙁 but more like iBook= big enough screen to read e-books on it that could be purchased from iTunes. (Now the naming plot is exposed too, all the flat portable products are named with i and the computers are Macs. Can’t chance the iMac though, which is a mix of both).
Then there would be the small MacBook Mini with pen input. Ah, who knows where the Leopard is taking us…
#23,
Notice the silence in the web today following the bricking of hacked iPhones?
#23,,, I was working for Apple… I have Mac’s all over the place. I still want one. I’m so hacked off that the iPod Touch has had the mail program and all of the internet goodies removed. WTF? I already have a phone (and it’s with Cingular) I don’t want an iPhone.
As I remember back, I think I couldn;t afford a Newton at the time.
If it has the following, I’ll jump on it:
1: At least 40GB of space
2: Full iPod functionality
3: Wifi access
4: Fix the recess problem the headphone jack on the iPhone has
I’d easily rather pull this out to surf the net than drain down my batteries and patience on my laptop.
#21
“Imagine a Mac in your pocket with handwriting & voice recognition that really works”
It’s called a Nintendo DS.
Wow, pedro is right. They did brick the hacked iPhones. One ZDNet article I just read said that it can affect both locked and unlocked iPhones.
Amazing. I expect this type of thing from MS but not so much Apple. I guess their contract with AT&T was in jeopardy.
Lame. The puppetmasters are at work.
from the article –
“More broadly characterized as Apple’s answer to the ultra-mobile PC, ”
an answer to a question nobody asked. I call BS, as have many others.
#30. they are bricked only if you run the firmware update. And yes, I have no doubt that there is a provision in Apple’s contract with AT&T that requires Apple to battle iPhone unlocking.