On Sat, Jun 13, 2009 at 10:27 AM, James
Fraser<wheresthatistanbul-newtontalk@yahoo.com> wrote:
> The 440 and 880 were billed as "the industry's first fully integrated communications devices that combine the power of cellular phones, fax machines, and personal computers." Which sure sounds like a PDA to me.
>
Dunno. I mean, the Newton could do these things as well, but the idea
of the PDA was to not merely do these things, but integrate them--make
the device act like a personal assistant, doing your organizing and
"thinking" for you--i.e. you toss in an appointment, and forget about
it until the alarm goes off. You write a note on the fly, "meet Bob
tomorrow for lunch." and the Newton turns that into an appointment--no
real thinking on your part. That was what made the Newton a PDA, and
what made the others not. It is a personal assistent--but digital. A
communicator--glorified cell phone/fax/email device is not the same
thing, nor is an electronic address book or calendar. In fact, to be
honest, while the Palm lays claim to the PDA title, I only know of one
device that truly achieved the proper title of Personal Digital
Assistent, and that was the Newton. There was nothing before it, and
really, nothing since--not even the Magic Cap or whatever it was
called, really accomplished what the Newton accomplished--integrating
all those various parts and bits, and pulling it all together. I've
been able to partly imitate that on my Treo, but it really is not the
same. The only blessing the Treo has over my Newton is that it is
small, and does a bunch more besides.
I looked at the EO page, and I really don't think that it and the
Newton can be compared. It wasn't just the hardware specs, or the form
factor, or even the shared functionality that is important here, but
the _difference_ between the two that matters.
-- -Jon Glass Krakow, Poland <jonglass@usa.net> "I don't believe in philosophies. I believe in fundamentals." --Jack Nicklaus ==================================================================== The NewtonTalk Mailing List - http://www.newtontalk.net/ The Official Newton FAQ - http://www.splorp.com/newton/faq/ The Newton Glossary - http://www.splorp.com/newton/glossary/ WikiWikiNewt - http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/ ====================================================================Received on Sat Jun 13 07:09:49 2009
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