[NTLK] Newton Learning Curve

Hi:

Well, after about 6 months of owning a new, sealed in box Newton MessagePad 2000 that I paid a premium for, and after months of research and tinkering, I am finally using my Newton as a deployed tech companion in my daily business activities. I absolutely love it. I can see how the Newton could drive some people away at first though: there is some stuff to learn about it. Well, if you just want to use notes and not really think of anything else than fine, but there is so much functionality to the Newton that it screams to be learnt in detail.

After the initial sort of daunting task of wading through the community written instructions on how to operate it, and having experimented with a few things, I am off to the races. I feel 'confident' enough now to use it. I am using it as it should be used: a personal digital assistant. I also think I know why the Palm Pilots failed: people, particularly in office environments, need something that is a bit bigger than the palm pilot to interact with. The Newton is just the device. I love its size and it is a joy to jot notes down, use the calculator, etc.

I am just starting to explore viewing Excel spreadsheets on it, and maintain a list of spreadsheets that my company uses. I am also writing articles on it and love the Word Processor as part of Works: very slick. This thing is amazing.

I think if people had the patience to get past the initial learning curve, that everyone would want to own one of these. Sure, I have an iPhone with a data plan, but the screen is too dang small and it just does not work the same way as the Newton: it is annoying to input anything into the iPhone, especially after a few beers!

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Received on Wed Aug 20 03:49:10 2008