Re: [NTLK] INTEL MID use Apple Icon

Hi, all,

I suppose it's time to speak up again. I am presently doing an
experiment in which I lean far more heavily on my laptop (with iCal
and iGTD) than on my Newton. It's a week long experiment to see how
things go.

My favorite thing about the Newton is the interface, which is
incredibly intuitive and makes sense, from the moment you use it. It
IS the HWR and the gestures. How often do I want to flick my mouse to
the edge of the screen to "store" a clipboard? All the freaking time,
thank you very much.

I am writing to object to this statement, by William:

> try the assist feature or look at how all of the pieces of data show
> up where ever they are needed.
>
> william

Why am I objecting? Because OS X has a fascinating set of tools built
into it. Sync services allow you to make changes in one place and they
immediately show up in the active running version of other programs.
(That, by the way, can't happen in the Newton because of the interface
having only one live program at a time.) Good programmers are out
there. I change something in MailTags, and iCal picks it up. I hit
"sync" in iGTD and it pulls in the information from iCal. It's not the
same, I know, but it's remarkably similar.

There's an amazing amount of potential within the OS, right now. The
iPhone stands separate from the iPod and the Mac, but the iPhone runs
OS X, and is but one step from a serious tablet computer. It has
things the Newton never dreamed of, but doesn't (yet?) have HWR. Once
it does, it will have sync services communicating between the program
data structures (all as sql files - many databases, once again, like
on the Newton).

So, the reason I haven't bought a ModBook is that they are 1. freaking
huge, and 2. probably soon to be obsolete. I don't need a tablet yet,
my Newton (and my Alphasmart Dana, and my laptop) serve me just fine.
But when Apple does release a tablet, the data will talk seamlessly to
each other, without me paying attention. And the HWR and gestures will
be there, in Ink.

The potential is there. If it happens, I'll be happy. If not, who
knows. But it's at least there.

Michael

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