Entry 350, on 2006-06-15 at 14:17:59 (Rating 1, Computers)
Rumours of an ultra-portable laptop, PDA, or similar device from Apple just won't go away. Apple pioneered the PDA with its original Newton in 1993 which was discontinued in 1998. I have always been a Newton fan, and I still have a MessagePad 100, a 2000, and an eMate which all work, but they are showing their age now so the lack of a device of this type from Apple is annoying.
I think the worst decision Steve Jobs ever made was discontinuing the Newton. On the other hand, Apple has really blossomed since his return, so I'm not being too critical! The problem was that the later Newtons, such as the MessagePad 2100 were really good, and the original issues of slow performance, poor handwriting recognition, and short battery life were basically gone. So why discontinue a product which has finally become useful after so many years?
Newton users are a loyal lot. There is still a remarkable amount of information about them on the Internet. Maybe that's because the Newton was just such an advanced product at the time - not just because of the hardware, but also the operating system and development environment. Maybe it was just too advanced and the world wasn't ready for it. This sort of thing does happen occasionally.
Imagine what Apple could do with a Newton-like device today! A high resolution, touch sensitive colour screen, iPod functionality, bluetooth and wireless, in a package about double the size of a 3G iPod would be ideal. And keep the easy development environment of the Newton or base it on similar technology to Mac OS X widgets so that many people could easily write software for it. Now that would be nice! Apple have all the technologies. They just need the will to use them.
Who knows whether it will ever happen because Steve Jobs has stated on several occasions that he doesn't support the idea of Apple making a PDA. Maybe he should think of it as a very small Mac Book (call it a Mac Book Mini or Nano) or a large multi-function iPod (iPod Pro maybe?) instead. The key thing would be to beat the opposition by creating a device with the legendary Apple ease of use and elegance. That would put it ahead of any other
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