Re: [NTLK] Quote of the day!

~~~ On 2007/07/13 20:26, Steven Scotten at splicer@paroxysm.com wrote ~~~

> On Jul 13, 2007, at 11:29 AM, Martin Joseph wrote:
>
>>
>> On Jul 13, 2007, at 9:25 AM, Steven Scotten wrote:
>>
>>> Companies do *not* exist to make money
>>
>> Companies do not exist to provide a social benefit. Wake up and
>> smell the coffee.
>
>
> Don't think I'm so naïve as to think that corporations are something
> other than profit machines; I get that. However, even if you only go
> to work because you want the paycheck and for no other reason, the
> only reason that your boss signs those checks is because you do your
> job. Stop doing your job and the paychecks stop coming in. Not always
> true, but it's the basic principle. From your point of view, maybe
> you even think that your only purpose is to make money, but unless
> you've found a way to cheat the system, your purpose is the benefit
> that you provide others, for which you get compensated. Even if you
> are cheating the system, you're probably at least causing others to
> believe that you are providing benefit.

The saying, "there's no such thing as a free lunch" works both ways. All
sound business is based on a good faith understanding that business will be
done, quid pro quo. When the power-relationship starts to become
unbalanced, or even when one side or the other begins to manipulate
circumstances to unbalance it, the good faith between the two sides is
jeopardized.

The question is -- and seems to be at the heart of the argument -- whether
or not the abandonment of the Newton project represents such breach of good
faith. And that brings us back to the Newton. My guess is, those of us
who say it doesn't breach good faith regard the products from Apple since
the termination of Newton to be ample/more than ample exchange for the loss
of the Newton. I suppose some of us who feel good faith has been breached
feel that the Newton was a far superior product to the others that were
axed, and should never have been included in Jobs' house-keeping exercise.
My own feeling is that while I'd have liked Big Jobs to have spared the
MP2100 the axe altogether, at the very least I'd have liked him to use the
creation of the iPhone to take advantage of the last 10 years of
tech-development, and revive the lost "next generation" of the Newton from
10 years ago. At a time when other manufacturers (with fundamentally
inferior systems and functionality) are rediscovering hand-held computing in
a big way, how could a made-over and thoroughly updated Newton (with the
choice of input by typing or by printing or writing with a stylus) fail to
get a serious market share?

But we're going round in circles here, aren't we? Some of us feel that they
can do without the things about the Newton that attracted them to it in the
first place, in exchange for an iPhone (or even other devices). Others of
us figure we can do without it even if we'd rather not. But some of us
don't see the iPhone as being "just as good" as the Newton. We do not want
to do without the Newton a single minute sooner that we must. Ideally that
would mean never. For us (at least most of us), it isn't that we see the
iPhone as a bad thing in itself. It's just that the iPhone is one more
unwanted obstacle to the revival of the Newton, and a poor substitute
(although one with some attractive features).

For myself, I don't "object" to the iPhone (although its well-documented
lack of certain features put it on a parr with a phone I had 2 years ago),
just as I don't "object" to the Blackberry or Palm or Psion or whatever
else. What I do object to is that the iPhone was developed *instead of* a
modern iteration of the Newton. And it's not as useful as the Newton in a
number of important ways -- not even the Newton of 10 years ago.

And seeing it all that way, I see also that there really isn't much to argue
about between ourselves. We all have different needs and wants from
handheld devices, and for those who don't need or want what makes the Newton
unique and special, the iPhone is likely to be as good as any other gadget
and better than most.

Me? I really need a Newton. Preferably more than one. I can hardly
believe I ever did without it. I need its effortless HWR, its invisible
handling of data (names, notes, appointments, etc., its great battery life).
And one day when my MP2100 and updated MP2000s no longer work, I need a new
updated one -- I need the Newton they almost made next.
 
Shalom.
Christian

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

³Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from a Newton.²
            -- What Arthur C. Clarke meant to say

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1ZzpdPJ7Zr4
(With thanks to Chod Lang)
http://tinyurl.com/29y2dl

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