[NTLK] iPhone is not the new Newton (& announcing a Newt sell-off shortly)

[dograt at earthlink.net]

On Dec 27, 2009, at 11:35 AM, paolo savonuzzi wrote:

> On 27/dic/2009, at 18.59, Dennis B. Swaney wrote:
>
>> The iPhone/iTouch is the descendant of the Newton and the
>> forefather of the "iTablet" to come.
>
>
> ... and connecting to a *modern* Mac takes just a few *seconds* and  
> no "esotheric" adapters/settings :-)
>
> oh, btw... it also leaves plenty of free space in my shirt's poket ;-)
> -- 
> paolo
>


Well, you can't compare technology to technology. Of course a device  
made 12 or 13 years ago is going to be more cumbersome in size and  
some techology, but rather it's the essence of the device, I think,  
that is the operative in this discussion.

IMO, one of the biggest factors was handwriting recognition. I  
despised the pop culture references to the problems of recognition in  
the first OS (which was corrected almost immediately) and which I  
believe was founded in fear of technology and bias against Apple, but  
I digress. I always loved and still rely on the Newt's amazing and  
accurate handwriting processing. That's the way I prefer to take  
notes and it's natural, comfortable and effective.

I'm not a typist, I never was, and certainly not a court recorder or  
secretary who knew shorthand, so I was shocked when the Palm first  
appeared with the horrific "Graffiti" (or whatever it was called)  
that expected *me* to learn some freakish shorthand glyph apparatus  
as if *I* was the device's secretary! I was offended and shocked by  
the audacity of that idea and soundly rejected the awful Palm devices  
back then.

I wanted a device that learned how I wrote, not forced me to learn  
*it's* strange and otherwise useless way of writing.

If you want to compare technologies, you can only do it by  
conjecturing what the Newt would be like had development continued. I  
fantasize that it would still be black, still have a metal,  
retractable stylus with an orange tip, but the devcie would be about  
the size of those little spiral pocket notepads. It would be replete  
with a screen cover, green screen and advanced connectivity.

Of course, it would never sell with the green screen since it seems  
vitally important for the majority of end users to be able to watch  
Youtube videos and/or see Java cursor "effects" and other such  
garbage on websites on their portable devices, but that would be the  
basis.

dave