Newton OS 3 dubbed 'Navi'

I was watching the "fake ???" spymac iwalk videos yesterday. And then I played white my newton and I realised that alot of people dismisded the iwalk videos becuase they didnt belive a pda could do that kind of stuff. But my newton does 10x cooler stuff then showed on the spymac videos. Some people have really missed something. I really like when you trash some text :D.
And the newton assistant. This device is so cool. I really hopes apple brings back the newton... The only thing I dont like wiht my newton is its to big, to much plastic around the screen. And its to heavy...
 
are we still talking about this ? :p
I doubt its going to be real...but I am looking forward to teh hoaxes, the movies, and for someone to make a REAL hoad of this "navi" UI lol :p
 
Originally posted by AdmiralAK
are we still talking about this ? :p
I doubt its going to be real...but I am looking forward to teh hoaxes, the movies, and for someone to make a REAL hoad of this "navi" UI lol :p
Click to expand...

I working on it :D
 
i really dont think apple will release a pda, why kill ipod sales? if they do release a pda it should be the ipod+pda because boring calander machines really suck. people will not buy just a pda, but a ipod with a color screen and a hell of alot of capabities would be great.
 
As far as I've understood my source, the project is not ready for primetime, so I guess it won't slash iPod sales in the near future. Also keep in mind that this might very well *replace* the iPod when it comes out. Or, as I suggested, it could be the high end iPod and be priced respectively. If the iPod will be cheaper (because of sinking hardware prices), an Apple PDA could be very well placed. The great thing about a device like the iPod is that it'll still be great in a year's time. Nobody's asking about the speed of its processor. The only thing that will make it look old some day soon is its harddrive, which can easily be upgraded in a future model. But still, for sound only 5 gigs are nice enough, 10 will be even nicer.

Of course, you must take every rumour with a grain of salt, but the system described in my earlier posts is not only feasible today, it'd make some waves, I believe. But as far as I know the hardware is far from being finalized, while the system is nearing beta stage. Apple wants to be able to adapt the system to new hardware fast. Sounds to me they're either waiting for something like the 'killer' screen (so they're the first to apply it to a PDA) or for an even better embedded processor by Motorola. The G5 is ready for those, you know, but what would it look like to have Dual G4s in PowerMacs and G5s in a PDA? ;)
 
Anyone else recognize the reference 'Navi' makes?

A couple of years ago, an anime series called 'Serial Experiments Lain' was aired in Japan, and then about a year ago it was released here. The series was heavily laced with references to Apple and NeXT (CoplandOS, the father's machine using NeXT icons/windows and seeing a bunch of *.app files on the screen as well). The general name they used for the consumer computers to get online were called 'Navi'.

Now the question I have is, is this reference proof of something valid or bunk? I cannot remember if/when Apple referenced something than referenced them. Depending on the way you look at it, it could act as evidence for or against it.

Personally I have a tendancy to say that this rumor was started by someone who watches too much imported anime in addition to their Mac habit. No offense to that person.
 
Even closer a relation that I already thought. I didn't bother comparing the FORM of the computers since I thought I already grasped the OS references.

Anyways, it still brings up the question, when has Apple ever used a codename twice, or referenced something that references them? Usually the codenames are a bit more organized. OS X 10.0+ are all wild cats, the first gen PPCs were all famous people (musician, astronomer, etc), what makes Apple suddenly change and pay homage to a writer in another country that paid homage to Apple?

I personally think this is bunk until I see hard evidence otherwise.
 
As some people mistrust my source, I made some more investigation on the codename part. As far as I can see 'navi' was used because of the following chain of reasoning:

- Sculley's pet project was the 'Knowledge Navigator' from which the 'Newton' finally stemmed.
- The anime series 'Serial Experiments Lain' picked this up (among other things) and converted the concepts to 'Navi'.
- When Apple started working at the new system, they first dubbed it Newton OS 3, but were told to change that, as someone higher up didn't want the reentering-the-PDA-market to have much reference to the Newton.

Yes it sounds a bit like a cat chasing its tail, but I can understand them, because the *concept* of the Knowledge Navigator was a bit far fetched at the time and Newton could not deliver those 'future dreams'. But 'Navi' (the system Apple is developping) is a bit closer to the original concept.
 
I dont mistrust you or your source, I hope you know what you talking about.

Do you know how long thay have come in development ?
Near feature complete, or are they just in the begining?

I hope apple makes some hints before the sharp linux pda is realesed here in sweden.
 
It would be nice if it was bigger then smaller, like a tablet computer. Here's why:
* It can replace my iBook (Ever tried to use it while walking?)
* I can do work on it. (I threw away my palm.)
* I can hand it to someone like a drawing of something. ("Here is my latest project. What do you think?")
* I can read on it.
* I can write on it. (My handwriting is large, and I couldn't fit a long word on a single line. (Like 'documentation'))
* I can surf the internet on it. (AirPort isn't that hard to implement, isn't it?)
* I can play games on it. (Make it have more OS X capabilities, I want to play StarCraft BattleNet on that thing!)

If it was like this I would buy it in a second. It would work.
 
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I read on a newton mailing list that some mebers think that apple will announce a new newton, 4 years after they killed it :D
 
It always stuns me to see how these threads heap one feature and wish after another onto whatever basic rumor is presented to them. In this case, any speculation should start off from the existing digital appliance: iPod. It has a harddisk, a reasonably fast processor, some RAM, a small lcd-screen, a battery, and a fast connector-cum-charger. The simplest way to make it into a different kind of digital would be to make the screen larger and extend the software. You still don't have a PDA; to make such a one would take too long to develop and put it in too high a price range for the present, depressed PDA market - the touch screen is far more expensive than the present tiny screen, and the necessary software too complex to develop in a jiffy, even from the venerable Newton code (which, after all, has a completely different code base from the iPod OS).

A larger, full color screen and some fairly simple extensions (reworked from QuickTime) will give Apple a convergence appliance with the following kinds of usage built-in: replay of sound files, digital recording of sound, slideshows of digital photos, and showing - with software on the Mac - of notes, databases, anything to do with text. The present CPU is probably not fast enough to show movies, but I might be wrong on that one.

This device will not send rockets to the moon, but it will have enough extra features to make buyers accept that another $100 is added to the present price while making the price of the extra hardware and development feasible for Apple within such financial restraints. The extra features parallel some of the digital appliances forecast by Xerox and IBM many years ago.

If there is one lesson to be learnt from Apple's introduction of hardware in the last two years, this is it: while the development cycle of existing products is fairly short, new products take far longer to introduce, and are far less revolutionary, than the Apple press expect - and there are far fewer of them than the pundits hope for. To wit, the iBook, the new iMac and the iPod. The one totally unexpected and revolutionary hardware item was the Cube.....
 
actually the strongARM is fast enough to run movies. There eixst newton movies (i.e. movies for the newton, which run on a newton). If you want more current examples, on the pocketPC OS you can play MPG, MPG4, AVI and other movie formats fast enought to have them be viewable.
 
Thank you for the information about the StrongARM CPU. It means that given an increase of RAM on top of the larger color screen and the s/w additions proposed previously, we are talking about a truly portable movie viewer! Those who have used the "portable" VCD players (a concept that died a slow death due to, among other things, immature battery technologies), will see this iScreen (?) as a realisation of their inherent possibilities.

Even more striking: after the first truly portable large-storage MP3 player (iPod), the natural evolution would be the first truly portable large-storage movie player. A derivative of iMovie could download a number of VCD's, a lot of divX'ed movies, or a couple of DVD movies via the speedy FireWire onto its harddisk, meanwhile charging its batteries.

In the bargain, one would get a MP3 player, a sound (live music?) recorder, a reader for stored texts and databases, a viewer of images/photos, and a portable data harddisk.

Possible problems: it would need a new-technology battery (changeable?) to power the screen and the harddisk. The size of the battery means an increase in size - but that is necessary to allow for the screen-size needed. Say, postcard-size with a depth of 1/2" ?

To sum up, an iScreen would bee an iPod with a larger color screen, QuickTime-like OS extensions, mic input and an iBook battery. Nothing else!
 
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