Re: [NTLK] iPod Touch or iPhone IS the next Newton!!

From: Peter Fraser <pjfraser_at_mac.com>
Date: Tue Oct 30 2007 - 17:22:50 EDT

to call the iphone merely a phone with an address book is ignorant and untrue.

i resisted getting an iphone for a long time (for me at least), but less on a functionality basis than on a cost basis. $20/month additional recurring cost was not ok for me.

but then i found out my employer would reimburse that $20, so i bought a refurb 8GB iphone for $350. essentially, i have the ipod touch plus a phone and web/email access anywhere a phone works, for $50 more than the Touch. and i was already going to buy the touch to replace our current ipod.

iphone is virtually perfect in form and function. plus it syncs effortlessly - with my outlook on the peecee at work, and everything else on our macs at home. sync without hassle is something i'd never experienced before and it's huge.

so what do i miss from my newton? voice recording and large scale notetaking. everything else it did is here now on iphone, and faster and smoother and far more intuitively. the apps are on their way, so if there's some little newt widget you can't live without, no worries, somebody'll write it for iphone (if you don't) soon enough. and i'll never be away from an AC outlet or USB port more than 12 hours so 3 weeks' battery life is a non-issue.

what do i not miss from newton? size, weight, fragility, jaggies, poor sync and backup, and most of all, the stylus. iphone's virtual keyboard is amazingly good and with the word-guessing feature it is very effective.

none of this is to take away from newton, which i will always adore and admire. and what an achievement, still, after 15 years. but don't sell iphone short out of loyalty to newton...

-- Peter
pjfraser@mac.com

 
On Tuesday, October 30, 2007, at 01:04PM, "Riccardo Mori" <rick@poc.it> wrote:
>
>dotline7:
>
>> Iphone is only a phone with address book. Which is OK. But not more.
>>
>> We have to wait for external keyboard and word processing, If
>> possible at
>> all.
>>
>> Any comments?
>
>One: the iPhone/iPod touch are not the Newton, and they'll never be.
>
>The underlying metaphor of the two devices is different: the Newton is
>like an electronic notebook, where you jot, tap, draw as if it were a
>common paper notebook. The other is like... a phone, or a home
>appliance with cool touch controls. The interaction is different (more
>'passive' and 'restricted' or 'sandboxed' in the iPhone). The extent
>of customisation and "what's doable" is different. In my opinion, the
>ideal, never-never-land Newton is actually a combination of the two. A
>handheld device which could do what both the Newton and iPhone can do:
>the freedom of writing anywhere in your own (recognisable/recognised)
>writing, combined with the modern technologies (especially
>connectivity) embedded in the iPhone. Yum.
>
>My 1 cent and a half,
>Rick
>
>====================================================================
>The NewtonTalk Mailing List - http://www.newtontalk.net/
>The Official Newton FAQ - http://www.splorp.com/newton/faq/
>The Newton Glossary - http://www.splorp.com/newton/glossary/
>WikiWikiNewt - http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
>====================================================================
>
>
>
>
>

====================================================================
The NewtonTalk Mailing List - http://www.newtontalk.net/
The Official Newton FAQ - http://www.splorp.com/newton/faq/
The Newton Glossary - http://www.splorp.com/newton/glossary/
WikiWikiNewt - http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
====================================================================
Received on Tue Oct 30 17:24:02 2007

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Tue Oct 30 2007 - 21:30:00 EDT