From: David Deranian (deranian_at_mac.com)
Date: Thu Apr 22 2004 - 19:56:36 PDT
Hi Gang-
Here I go again. A short rant. I just can't believe I'm the only one
here, that desperately wants to be able to perform the following action
with his or her Newton. Let me describe the scenario.
You're sitting at your desk working on your desktop machine doing
whatever it is you do. It's a beautiful day outside. You decide you're
going to sneak out for about an hour and enjoy a bit of that nice
weather. But you need to stay connected with email, instant messaging
and you may want to browse some websites. So, you get out of your
chair, unplug your Newton from it's AC power cord and head outside with
your WiFi Card and/or Bluetooth card in your back pocket to BOTH enjoy
the day AND stay connected.
Unfortunately, that scenario is currently just an unattainable dream
for 99% of all Newton users. Here's how it breaks down for me
personally. I've had WiFi working for over a year with Airport on my
home office network, and it works beautifully as long as I assign the
Newton a manual IP address. I never got it to work with DHCP. That
could be my own incompetence, but assuming I could solve that issue,
there would still be a unsolvable problem. Most commercial hotspots out
there (like Starbucks T-Mobile Network) require a secure website login
(https:). Since there are no Newton browsers that support https,
there's no way to log on to one of the biggest most accessible wireless
networks available. The Newton is foiled once again. Meanwhile, all the
Palm, PocketPC and laptop users are having a good old time online like
it's no big deal. Even for those of us that really LOVE our Newtons,
doesn't this frustrate you and make you feel like a 2nd class PDA user?
Now with Bluetooth, I should just keep my mouth shut because I know
that Eckhart is doing his best to develop Blunt to the point where it
will work with more phones. Currently, it does not work with my
Sony-Ericsson T616. I have great hope that Blunt will become workable
and that alone will make the Newton immediately "catch-up" to the
current crop of Bluetooth enabled PDAs out there. For what it's worth,
for those of us that would love to see Blunt working, we should let
Eckhart know we'd support him and be willing to pay for such
functionality. I know I would be willing to pay a decent price for such
an important upgrade.
I'm not writing this simply to bitch and moan. I just find it strange
that more people don't feel frustrated like I do about the lack of
mobile communication and the significant constraints that our beloved
Newtons have forced us to live with. I wrote the list recently and
described how close I came to purchasing a Sony Clie for one reason
only: Built in WiFi and Bluetooth. I didn't buy it, because after being
a Newton user since 1993, I just couldn't bring myself to work on a
device with an operating system I really don't like.
I'm asking the list, if there's anyone else out here that shares my
pain, or if I'm just a lone weirdo. I'm not a Starbucks yuppie, but I
can't believe I'm the only one that's ever wanted to whip out his
Newton and check mail while knocking back a few caffeine shooters?
Anyone out there agree?
-- David Deranian Digital Arts & Sciences, Inc. Communication Arts for the Digital Age -- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
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