The Newton

H2OSX

H2OSX

iKnow (sometimes)
I have a question, with all the popularity of the iPods, why hasn't Apple brought the newton back. For those of you who dont know what the newton was, it was this wonderfull "PDA" of sorts that was very early in the pds market and was extreemely awsome. The only problems with it were the publicity, connectability, and the size/weight. All these problems can be easily solved now that Apple has lots of publicity, can already interface with most other opperating systems using firewire/usb, and make kick ass designs that way nothing and are extremely small. Just look at how the iPod is selling. Now that 4th gen iPods are said to have video capabilities, I say they should take it a step further and stick an operating system on there. An actuall pocket mac if you will. I think it would be awsome - what do you guys think? -
 
Oh heck, why not just bring back the Quicktake 100... afterall... with the popularity of the ipod and all.
 
Heh, ya I've still got one of those in my garage. But ya, in my opinion, nows the time for Apple to come out w/some rly cool and inovative stuff. Also a good time to bring bad old ideas that were killed. O - I forgot to mention last time that I've herd that the newton staff for apple was never fired - so mby that means theyre workin on sumthin - but mby it doesnt. Who knows
 
Jobs has said many times that Apple won't go back into the pda business, which is losing ground to smartphones anyway.
The iPod does have basic pda functions, so one could use that.
And there's been rumors of a Newton revival, but not from Apple. From another company licensing the name, which also sounds questionable to me, since it would be tough to separate Newton from Apple.
 
PDAs are overhyped in terms of what they can do anyway. For a few hundred more dollars, you can get a fully-featured notebook, or, for a few hundred less, you can get an MP3 player with PDA functionality. And it is true that phones with PDA-like capabilities are much more popular than regular PDAs.

The Newton was great for its time, but let's be honest here -- PDAs never really caught on like people expected. They're niche products that don't make life simpler -- in fact, it's the other way around. Sure, it's nice to have a calendar and your phone book with you at all times, but your mobile phone does that already. Ever tried to take notes on a PDA? It's easier to take notes with a piece of paper and pencil, plus the handwriting recognition of PDAs falls severely short of what it should be and makes "writing" on PDAs more clunky than useful. Sure, they're really cool and some of them have power that rivals low-end notebooks, but for what? Who couldn't live without their PDA? We couldn't say the same thing about our cell phone or laptop.

The Newton is a great piece of history and I hope it stays there. Far too advanced for its time, too bulky and outdated for the present, no use for it or any variation of it in the future. We've got iBooks and PowerBooks that are the size of a sheet of paper and thinner than most books. We've got our Sony-Ericsson/Nokia/Motorola phones that keep our numbers and dates organized as well as give us mobile internet access. We don't need PDAs -- they've got an identity crisis... "What am I? A computer? A phone? Where do I fit in? I do a lot of things, none of them really well, and I strive to make life easier but end up just getting in the way..."
 
If Apple does a PDA, I'll SOOOO get one :D. And OS X already has some pretty nifty hand writing recognition built-in, so don't have to worry about that...
I don't want a phone, I want a PDA :)
 
Newton, a remake of it, would make a lot of mac fans buy it without even thinking, if it was reintroduced. It would be great, but ...someone needs to be convinced that Apple needs a PDA.
 
Well, acording to most of you guys would it be better for the new newton to be a PDA phone? PDA's workin with the mac like the handspring line have evlolved into major PDA phones so mby the newton should start there. But also, I'm talkin more pocket pc type thing w/lots of power, but think about it, a cell phone w/10g of memory and aqa interface. How cool would that be. O and Randman, do u know the name of the "other" company?
 
People say they want a Newton but how many would actually be purchased? The Newton could be revived and it could be another huge bomb.
People are turning away from PDAs. I've long had one, from Handspring to the Palm Tungsten line and I use it less and less since my Nokia 6600 and iPod handle most day-to-day functions.
Apple doesn't need to be convinced to enter a stagnating market, consumers would need to be convinced that Apple can create a PDA that no others in the swollen market can do? And why spend so much to create one? Raise the prices of computers even more?
And why compete with the likes of SE, Nokia, Motorola and others with a phone? It's a pipe dream and if people sat and thought about it, the reasons against one far outweigh any desire for one.
And for h20, it was mentioned in a previous thread. Don't remember the name but it was around the beginning of the year.
 
True, but it would be awsome to like upgrade the iPod to do more of the functions a pda, or camera, or phone can do. Mby we could have the iPod, the iPod mini, and the iPod extreme. -- ya a pipe dream
o- and randman do u have a link?
 
I'm starting to think about the Newton and iPods being married together. I'm saying the larger regular iPods will get color, limited PDA functions and the ability to play MPeg 4 videos. I also believe the mini iPod will only get a color screen. This will differentiate the two iPod brands. IMHO Newton is not coming back, just it's ghost in the next generation iPod.
 
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