AppleInsider and their patent trawling … they know how to spoil us!

Funny thing is, about six to nine months before the iPhone was announced I was sitting down with a bunch of Newton guys (SNUG, the first Newton user’s group; now morphed into SiPUG, but people still bring their Newtons) and I asked them what they thought the Newton would look like if Apple designed it at that time.

Then: I had my MP2100 out on the table. I pulled out my iPod and placed it on top of the screen. “Pretty close in dimensions, huh?” I described a device that was the size of an iPod, but the entire front face (minus a bezel) would be its screen. It’d have an iPod docking connector and synch your address book, calendar, notes, music, etc. via iTunes. No PC Card/etc. slots, no removable battery (just like an iPod). 8 GB of Flash RAM would be reasonable.

It just made sense, given the foundations in technology that Apple had been building.

The next thing that makes sense: Apple now has experience with HSDPA 3G chipsets. They also now have deals with carriers worldwide. Both are thanks to the iPhone. Apple’s portables are all going to get build-to-order options for built-in HSDPA, just like built-in WiFi used to be an option. Unlike other companies who only have a small set of models that offer built-in 3G, though, Apple’s going to have it as an option across all of their laptops. (The MacBook Air is just begging for this, and there’s photos out there of people who have hacked it in.)

Thanks again.

It is interesting to consider the “what if Steve Jobs didn’t kill the Newton” thought. Personally I think the Newton would have progressed feature by feature as all the other PDAs did, without making much of a bite into the market, similar to how Blackberries for years failed to catch on in the consumer space. It was a cool gadget looking for a market that wasn’t quite ready and if it had been around, it would have lacked the sensational quantum leap the iPhone was able to achieve by hitting the market the way it did. As the adage goes, “you have to break a lot of eggs to make an omelet” and I feel it applies very well to Apple and the fate of the Newton. In reality the Newton never died; the dream just got bigger and came to fruition in one giant leap at a time when the market was seriously wanting it. A phoenix rising out of the ashes.

One of the three major successes Palm had with the Palm Pilot was the ease with which it could sync your calendar/contacts/etc. data with your PC. (The other two were its small size and its low price, with an additional feature being its long battery life.)

With the iPod and later the iPhone, Apple took a lesson from this.

I’m not surprised at all that Apple killed off the Newton after re-absorbing Newton, Inc., in order to focus on their core products. It’s unfortunate, though, that they gave misleading, or inappropriately hopeful messages for the reason, such as being able to provide more support for the platform by keeping it closer. Then when they killed it off they announced that there would be a replacement product in the near future (it took nine years after that for the iPhone to come to market). Apple could have, on the other hand, just let Newton, Inc. go.

BTW, at the time Newton was killed, there were no mainstream color PDAs. Sharp had a Japanese-only color screen PDA, but it was limited to something like only four colors.

Newton OS 2.0, on the other hand, had internal support for color. There was a PCMCIA external video card that worked with both Macs and the Newton, and the Newton could display color with it when hooked up to an external monitor. There was even 3rd party software that could play back Powerpoint presentations from a Newton with that card and a VGA display.

Thanks for the clarifications, and the history too. Despite my errors, I still have a lot of faith that whatever comes from Apple will be something that reaches into the future a bit, unlike the rest of the catch-up makers.

The only part I’ve ever disagreed with was the rumored assertion that Steve Jobs killed the Newton out of spite. It just doesn’t add up in my books. I recall the Newton as a PDA trying to exist in a world mostly running on paper, IBM PCs, and fax machines at that time. Even if I entered all my calendar data or Contacts into it, there was nothing I could do with all that data back then. Steve Jobs had to focus Apple on a few products they could do really well to stop Apple’s financial bleeding. The Newton was expensive, had fallen behind other PDAs (no color screen), and had a very limited fan-base/market. I believe any CEO worth his wage would have made the same decision, as unpopular as it was with the tech crowd.

“Jobs was at the helm (correct me if I’m wrong) and largely seen as responsible for the ill-fated Lisa project.”

Jobs was ousted from the Lisa project, which is why he took over the Macintosh project. Remember how the Mac project building had a pirate flag flying over it?

(N.B. The Macintosh was originally conceived of by Jef Raskin. His idea was of a much simpler machine that was more of an appliance, especially targeting word processing and basic productivity work. Jobs came in and pushed Raskin out, turning the Mac into more of a “mini-Lisa” general purpose computer. The Mac’s OS was never intended for multi-tasking or other “advanced OS” features, which is why it got so bogged down after System 7 and Apple became desperate to replace its foundations and have a true “modern” OS.)

“almost sunk himself by pushing the Mac Cube out at a price much too high (personally I see the Cube as a halo product that broke the mold of what a PC had to be, paved the way for the MacMini, and ultimately led to the plausible creation of the all-in one crt-less G4/5 iMacs).”

The G4 Cube should have been a headless iMac with a G3 processor. Even though a huge percentage of people who bought G4 towers never really used their expansion capabilities, part of what they were buying into was the OPTION of expandibility. The G4 Cube was supposed to appeal to these people, since it WAS cheaper than the equivalent tower, but it missed that fundamental desired possible expansion feature. On the other hand, as a “headless,” cheaper iMac, it probably would have sold very well. The Mac mini shows that it could have been at the very least a moderate success.

@beanie

“My guess is iPod will lose lots of marketshare. I will be very surprised if it can hold.”

Keep guessing. :)

@Brau

“If you look at Jobs’ history, despite some lack of success (Lisa, Newton, Next)”

As I noted above, Jobs was ousted from the Lisa project. Also, he had nothing to do with the Newton, it was seen as Scully’s pet project (which is rumored to be part of why Jobs killed it after he came back).

Part of the Apple ///’s failure can be attributed to Jobs, as he insisted on it not having a fan. It also only had three slots, vs. the eight in the Apple II+ (then seven in the later Apple //e and IIgs), though that never got a chance to become a problem.

Similarly, while Jobs was still at Apple there were no Macs with fans or slots. The first Macs with slots and/or fans, the Mac II and Mac SE, were designed the year after Jobs left, in 1986.

Once Jobs came back to Apple they again released a machine with no fan and minimal expansion, the iMac. Luckily, this time the market was ready for such a machine and it was a success. Then the one bump on the road since then was the G4 Cube, with its similar philosophy (see above).

Right now manufacturers are throwing ideas out into the market to see what sticks, ultimately the market will be reduced to Mobile Computers as standalone DAPs and PMPs go away, internet tablet devices probably aren’t going to stick either since they don’t create new platforms, just flood the market with devices that do basically the same thing.

Sebastian

With minor edits it sounds like he should be our next president

I also recall an Apple-filed patent way back regarding the placing of multiple image sensing (camera?) lenses between pixels of a display. The implications of this idea are tantalizing and clearly would require advanced circuit design akin to PA Semi.

One other thing that rings in my ears is something Steve Jobs said at the end of his last keynote; that the foundation has been laid and the next few years are going to see products that are “through the roof”. If you look at Jobs’ history, despite some lack of success (Lisa, Newton, Next), all the products he has championed have been way before their time. Apple is going to be very interesting to watch.