Re: [NTLK] The future of Newton--What's your best vision?

From: John Chu <johnchu_at_acm.org>
Date: Mon Jun 30 2008 - 10:19:46 EDT

> So for me, my best vision is a complete change in policy by Apple, and
> the
> release -- soon! -- of an "iNewton" or whatever they call it.

I really doubt Apple will ever resurrect the Newton name. Most people
won't know what it means. Of the rest, most of them will associate it
with failure. Only a small minority, most of whom read this list, will
associate it with anything positive.

However, I can see the iPhone/iPod touch platform slowly moving in the
direction of actual content creation though. The latest firmware has
Chinese handwriting recognition. (Just this feature has made it much
more appealing to me.) Maybe they'll do English next. MacRumors did say
that they were hiring someone to work on handwriting recognition. And if
Apple isn't making content creation apps, 3rd parties are. My hope is
that the iPhone/iPod touch platform matures into an ecosystem with a
wide variety of apps which do everything I do with a Newton and then
some.

The problem, as with the Newton, so far, is with syncing. There doesn't
seem to be a simple, general way of getting arbitrary files on and off
the iPhone/iPod touch. It looks like each app will have to roll its own
method of getting its files to and from the platform. That's
unfortunate. You'd think they could use iTunes to do this the way they
already use it for audio and video. Maybe they will in a future rev.

                                       john

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Received on Mon Jun 30 10:25:58 2008

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