From: Doctor Clu (drclu_at_swbell.net)
Date: Mon Jul 07 2003 - 22:11:39 PDT
"What ifs" is always a fun game to play. Pointless but fun.
So looking back, and I was in this scene when it was all cancelled, in
truth, I thought they did great. Newton users signed long lengthy petitions
that used to go for pages and pages and was featured online for people to
add to it. On the day of the closing Newton users amassed in California at
Apple HQ, and Apple was nice enough to serve cookies and such I understand.
People tried to buy the rights. Companies with big bucks tried to buy
the rights. In time, Newton clone company (geez forgot the name) was
continuing to make the clones and actually sued Apple when the line was
discontinued.
It's not that people didn't try. And it is not that Apple could not
have continued the Newton.
What it really seemed to come down to was Apple was in a crisis, and new
leadership, with Jobs recently getting back the CEO position. It was either
Macintosh or Newton. To keep both would mean the final steps of sinking
Apple beyond repair, and decided that only one could be supported. They
supported Macintosh, the iMac was born shortly thereafter, and boom, Apple
took off again with renewed vigor, leaving the Newton users, Newton clone
companies, and Newton developers in the dust.
What dust that was left behind was releasing a good amount (though not
all) of the development tools and documentation that had once cost people
hundreds of dollars. And other things came to light that were in the beta
stages, like the text to speech, and later, Dragon systems Speech to Text.
In conclusion, the Newton community has worked with great vigor to
improve, to strive, to make things happen for the community. And when we
all realized that petitioning Apple was a lost cause, the developers, a
least some really good ones, have stuck by and made sure that new
developments happened.
I really doubt that looking back that we could have done this any
better, and in many ways, though my PDA is twice the size now of other
portable devices, and though it is in green and black for colors, I love it,
and am actually quite proud of the Newton as a device and the people who
swear by it.
In truth, I have tried to use it as it's own computer platform, and that
was actually workable. But in the end, the Newton only needs to take notes
and names and sound recordings. Everything else we come up with is a nice
bonus!
Laters everyone! Keep the green!
Doctor Clu
on 7/7/03 1:39 PM, newtontalk_at_newtontalk.net at newtontalk_at_newtontalk.net
wrote:
> Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2003 15:37:21 +0200
> From: WL <w_l_at_gmx.net>
> Subject: [NTLK] Newtoneers to be louder back then?
>
> Hi,
>
> When i read "Toshiba softens stance on e740 OS upgrade"
> (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68/31595.html), i was immediately
> reminded of the angry groups of Newton enhusiasts in Spring '98 after
> the Newton line was declared dead.
>
> Apparently here's a case where a company comes around from flatly
> denying a request to (as of now) saying they're "not initially" do what
> the users wanted but "continue to gauge demand and evaluate customer
> requirements".
>
> So i'm wondering: Could the Newton community have been any louder, i.e.
> more efficient in achieving its goal of convincing Apple to continue
> producing/developing Newtons or at least selling Newton Inc.?
>
> --
> regards,
> -- Wolf Lichtenberger
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