Talk:Apple Newton/Archive 1

Archive 1

Actual usage

Owning a Newton 130, the most powerful of the hand held newtons, has been a good experience. These items are easy to find on ebay or used otherwise for around $50-100. The problem as I have found is a poor developer base, and as a result very odd software availability. I have owned this machine for less than a week but -- have used it pretty heavily. I will provide more updates in the future :) --CBT — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maximus Rex (talk • contribs) 05:46, 5 February 2004 (UTC)

Actually that would be the MP 2100, as the most powerful. Certainly not the 130. Jgw 20:51, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The article states that the vastly improved handwriting recognition came out with the 2000/2100. Not so -- it came out with the 120. The 2000 was simply much faster (which didn't especially affect handwriting recognition since the CPU didn't go flat out to do it, and it was handled asynchronously). -- Tonio Loewald (used and developed for Newtons 93-96) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.244.5.30 (talk) 04:03, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Pixio url

The Pixio URL leads to http://wwws.sun.com/software/products/delivery_server/index.html. MSTCrow 05:48, June 4, 2004 (UTC)

Simpsons and trivia

The Simpsons fan site wwww.snpp.com says that the Newton in episode 2F05 belongs to Dolph, and the memo was to Kearny. The current edit 17:59, 18 Apr 2005 by Rbellin appears to be inconsistent with this authoritative reference source. ( And yes, I have no life....) --Wtshymanski 02:01, 19 April 2005 (UTC)

Thanks: the reference is here, and you're right. Fixed now. -- Rbellin|Talk 16:58, 15 June 2005 (UTC)

not sure about the xfiles mention - i cant remember an episode where i saw a newton? does anyone else? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.157.34 (talk) 12:33, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I deleted the Terminator 2 reference - for a start, the film came out in 1991, two years before the Newton. John Connor used an Atari handheld computer, although I forget the model type now. The Fuji logo on the screen is a dead giveaway. Tohya 11:34, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

It's an Atari Portfolio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Portfolio Tohya 11:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Emate 300

I think that the Emate should be a different article than the Newton, since it is basically a laptop with a touchscreen. 24.151.53.102 19:41, 31 December 2005 (UTC)Tom Barber

I don't agree. The eMate ran the same Newton OS as the PDA-esque systems. It was just a Newton with a keyboard and a little less oomph.

I agree. The eMate is a lot more than just an added keyboard and different CPU. It had a drastically target market than the Newton, was a separate platform from the Newton (despite using the same OS for compatibility), and it had drastically different internals. It also bared a different price tag and was made to seem like a low-cost and easy to use laptop. A separate eMate article is badly needed. — Wackymacs 21:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• I agree. The eMate was a significantly different form factor, with different abilities, pricing, and target market (education). Saying it's just a Newton with a keyboard and less oomph feels a bit like saying a Pocket PC is just a tiny Windows laptop, and that a Windows laptop is just a Windows desktop with the keyboard glued to the display. But those are 3 rather different products despite sharing some OS code and interface conventions.

Jason C.K. 05:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, apparently someone already did it. But didn't fix the re-direct. I just did.

Jason C.K. 21:56, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Pictures

This article badly needs more pictures imho. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 00:21, 10 March 2006 (UTC) (talk) 81.247.179.177

Dylan

Had it been retained, Dylan, with garbage collection and close OS integration, would have preceded Microsoft's managed code revolution by over a decade.

Did the submitter already forget about Java and Smalltalk, and any number of other obscure, "managed code" languages from the 70s? Jgw 20:51, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that aside from mentioning Dylan was intended to be used and, owing to being perpetually behind schedule, was set aside any such discussion of Dylan's merits belongs in another article. -- Tonio Loewald —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.244.5.30 (talk) 04:06, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Still in use?

As of 2001 the County of Los Angeles was sending out researchers to the light rail stations with MP2100s to gather data from rail users. In addition, at several medical conferences up to about 2003 the MP2100s were used to gather attendee's badge info from a card reader attached to the MP. I haven't seen them recently, but for a while you could see on eBay a buyer for the conference set up company purchasing MPs en masse. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.17.19.172 (talk) 22:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Landfill?

Regarding this edit, I've tried to substantiate the claim from sources other than blogs. The best I can find is that Apple seemed to have buried 3,000 Lisa computers in a Utah landfill at one point. 30,000 Newtons in a CA landfill is a pretty sensational statement, and I think it needs more substantial citation that just a blog or two. Unless people object, I'll remove that statement from the article in a few days. -- Tomlouie | talk 18:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the landfill claim needs to be supported by a real source before being reported as fact. However, if you've found a number of blogs talking about it, it can certainly be reported as rumor. Don't just discard such citations if they seem notable -- someone thought the landfill claim was interesting enough to add here, so we may as well report it in some form. -- Rbellin|Talk 18:24, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I looked harder. I found that there are only two sources of the landfill claim: a 11/2000 user comment on Amazon.com, and the aforementioned 4/2006 David Wood article. The article is actually a PR piece for his handheld device company, and the article is devoted to describing Apple's failures and successes, as applicable to the future success of his company. As such, I don't believe this makes for a good small citation. -- Tomlouie | talk 11:32, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I was at Apple in the Newton group when this happened. I am unable to verify the number or type of units, but we certainly scrapped a lot of the earlier models. I believe they were original and MP100s which were not effectively upgradable (ROM as opposed to Flash) and they were replaced by later models. Starting, as I recall, with MP110 and MP2000, we had much less need to scrap them since the units could be upgraded and the usability in vertical markets was much more significant (as evidenced on these pages, vertical markets have a significantly longer live sales window than straight consumer markets). Unfortunately for this entry, this comment still amounts to hearsay.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.95.133.97 (talk • contribs) 19:51, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Duplication

The last sentence of "Newton Models" and the last sentence of "Other Uses" are the same. Which place is better? We don't need both. --Claytonius3 15:26, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Use of present tense

Is it appropiate to use 'is' in this article when the product appears to have been discontinued? Thanks. Computerjoe's talk 15:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, was the product really discontinued? Maybe it was just put aside for several years. I think the iPhone is a direct descendant of the Newton. AppleInsider also something very interesting to read, here:

• Up next for Apple: the return of the Newton —Preceding unsigned comment added by DigitalGuy (talk • contribs) 04:43, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

DigitalGuy 04:46, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Article structure/info on HWR

It doesn't seem right to have SO much info about HWR contained in "Market reception" and virtually no info at all about it under, say, "Screen and input". I think most of the HWR info under "Market reception" should be moved to "Screen and input". Jason C.K. 01:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Link suggestions

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Used price

Even given the age of the hardware and software, Newtons still demand a sale price on the used market far greater than that of comparatively aged PDAs produced by other companies. As of 2004 the Newton 2000 and 2100 could still fetch a price, without accessories, of over $100. In 2006 CNET compared a Newton Message Pad 2000 to a Samsung Q1, and the Newton was declared better [1]

I modfied the above to mention comparatively aged PDAs. I think this is important because I'm pretty sure a top end recent model PDA in good condition will fetch a price well over $100 Nil Einne 07:22, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Sales

I'm trying to determine how many Apple branded Newton's were sold. So far, I have found this article that says fewer than 300,000 were sold: http://www.pdamd.com/features/feature-49.xml Can anyone come up with a more authoritative and accurate number? Chris Murphy 03:40, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I recently found this article which states, according to IDC, unit sales worldwide were 60,000 in 1996: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EKF/is_n2169_v43/ai_19494161

This article states, without attribution, that there were 100,000 units sold in 1993: http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/E1DD097F-EE28-4FBA-A1F2-D831512E423F.html

Chris Murphy (talk) 22:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Dylan language/runtime compared to X

the sentence "would have preceded Microsoft's managed code concept by over a decade. " is arbitrarily comparing Dylan to a MS product and has a whiff of Apple snobbery. A more appropriate comparison would compare Dylan to other early managed code environments (Java, Smalltalk) preferably ones that were deployed in a handheld or at least a consumer product. Metadynamics 00:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Controlpanelnewton.png

Image:Controlpanelnewton.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. BetacommandBot (talk) 05:34, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

iPhone's, not iPhones'

I changed this in the article. Uzimaster (talk) 01:50, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

This article should be renamed

I think this article should be renamed to "Newton (platform)" or something similar (just not "Apple Newton" or "Newton (PDA)") because Newton is a platform, not just one product or a product line. While it is true that Apple developed and marketed most of the Newton devices, the Newton platform was still open for use for other companies. The wide market of third party hardware and software also says so, and as a heavy MessagePad 120 user and programmer of Newton software I believe I've got a point. HorvatM (talk) 13:08, 11 December 2008 (UTC)HorvatM

I think I agree with you. Looking at the length of the article, there is definitely enough material to split it up as well.

(I mention that because sometimes articles are merged when there isn't enough information. If we didn't have enough material for a separate Newton Platform and MessagePad series article, we would probably still keep one article. But the article is actually pretty long already)

So, I've gone ahead and created a new article, Apple Newton (Platform). I've moved some pieces of content to it. I should probably also rename the original article.

(Also, since I notice you've just registered your account on Wikipedia, I want to make sure you're aware that I'm just another editor and not any sort of admin type. I've been here awhile but I am not an expert on the tools.)

Oh, yeah, and, I just went through and looked at the changes you made. Very very good. Reading through all the really nifty stuff that the Newton did makes me very nostalgic. The lack of a file system UI on the iPhone seems to be pushing app developers into object-store like behaviour in most cases. I still do see files sometimes, but thankfully not often. Bhimaji (talk) 19:43, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think an additional article should be made at Apple Newton (platform), instead the relevant content should be moved to MessagePad since that is currently a redirect to Apple Newton. The "main" Newton article should be about the platform and the MessagePad page can be about that series of Newton devices. I don't see a need for a separate platform article, but I do see a need for a separate MessagePad article. Don't you think this would be a better change? It makes more sense to me. ~ Paul^T+/_C 19:57, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I tend to think that the "Platform" suffix (thanks for fixing the capitalization) is helpful due to the confusion among many people about the difference between the platform and the product. Bhimaji (talk) 03:29, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

No! This article should be renamed to "Newton (platform)"; there is no need for creating one. (Although I might go forward and edit the Newton OS article too. But some more information on other Newton devices (the Motorola Marco, etc.) would be welcome. HorvatM 16:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC)HorvatM

I *think* what we both want as the end result is the same. I want an article about the Newton platform, and an article about the Newton MessagePad series of devices. A large percentage of the content in this article would go to the Newton platform article, while some of it would go to the MessagePad article. Bhimaji (talk) 16:30, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

So, let's rename this article to "Newton (platform)" and create a new one titled "Apple MessagePad", and copy the table of MessagePad models into it, and the section on this article which has this table should be replaced with "Main article: Apple MessagePad". HorvatM 18:05, 12 December 2008 (UTC)HorvatM —Preceding unsigned comment added by HorvatM (talk • contribs)

(undent) In terms of content, I think we are on the same page. We all think this article should be split into two articles: one about Netwons generally and one specifically about the MessagePad series of devices. What we have conflicting opinions about is the naming convention for those two articles. I think Apple Newton and MessagePad should be the names of the two articles. The "Apple Newton" page should be about the platform generally and any content specific to the MessagePad series should be moved to that page. I don't see any need to have a separate Newton (platform) article if the content at Apple Newton covers that information sufficently. Regardless, the naming of the pages isn't that important. I suggest getting the content in place for both pages; one for the Newton platform and one for the MessagePad devices. Once that is reasonably complete then we can bring the discussion to WP:MAC, the Macintosh WikiPorject and see what the wider community thinks with regard to the naming convention. Is this a good compromise? ~ Paul^T+/_C 13:08, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, but this article ("Apple Newton") should be renamed to "Newton (platform)" because the official name of the Newton platform was always "Newton" and never "Apple Newton". HorvatM 20:00, 13 December 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by HorvatM (talk • contribs)

I don't have a problem with that. Ideally the article would be named Newton, but a certain scientific unit named after some wacky scientist owns that page. The title Apple Newton was an attempt to disambiguate the page but I think Newton (platform) does the job just as well - if not better as it allows for the pipe trick. So we are in agreement then? Move Apple Newton to Newton (platform), merge the content from Apple Newton (platform), and create a new article at MessagePad with information specific to that series of Newton OS devices from information that is currently on Apple Newton. Seems pretty reasonable to me! ~ Paul^T+/_C 07:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree, but no merge is needed, since Apple Newton (platform already is a partial copy of what will become Newton (platform). Otherwise, great. But I don't know where the table of Newton devices (on this article) should go. Maybe to Comparison of Newton devices? HorvatM 14:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)HorvatM —Preceding unsigned comment added by HorvatM (talk • contribs)

Everything in this (Apple Newton) article should be moved to Newton (platform), MessagePad (this is currently a redirected link to Apple Newton, open this link to see what I mean), Newton OS, or eMate 300. Once the content has been moved/merged to these other pages, we will create a redirect from Apple Newton to the new main page Newton (platform). Okay, I just moved Apple Newton to MessagePad. Now we just need to expand this page (MessagePad) and make sure all the content is about the MessagePad series of devices. Any content that is unrelated should be merged to Newton (platform), Newton OS, or eMate 300. Once the MessagePad page is reasonably complete I will change the redirect on Apple Newton (from this link) to Newton (platform). ~ Paul^T+/_C 20:15, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Just copy everything from here to Newton (platform), and erase everything MessagePad-specific, that will be kept on this page. HorvatM 20:28, 15 December 2008 (UTC)HorvatM —Preceding unsigned comment added by HorvatM (talk • contribs)

Copy and paste are poor ways of moving content on Wikipedia. For one, you lose the edit history (and I just now noticed you did exactly that on the Newton (platform) article on December 11th). See WP:MOVE and WP:CPM for more information. As of right now all of the content is where it needs to be. The only thing I'm not 100% sure on is the name for the MessagePad article. I think it should be Newton MessagePad instead. ~ Paul^T+/_C 20:50, 15 December 2008 (UTC) Also, we might want to get an admin involved to do a history merge to fix the copy/paste operation you did on December 11th. ~ Paul^T+/_C 20:53, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

My apologies. It seems User:Bhimaji did the copy/paste to Newton (platform), not you. ~ Paul^T+/_C 21:11, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The correct name for the MessagePad article would be "Apple MessagePad" since that is the official name of the product line. HorvatM 21:27, 15 December 2008 (UTC)HorvatM —Preceding unsigned comment added by HorvatM (talk • contribs)

I'm sorry - I didn't realize you could move parts of an article and preserve the edit history. I was attempting to split the article up since parts of it were heavily MessagePad based and parts were heavily Newton platform based. Bhimaji (talk) 22:18, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you can actually split an article and keep the history on both pages, but since the bulk of the information is going to be in Newton (platform) and not Apple MessagePad, the article history should be there. We need to merge the history from Apple MessagePad into Newton (platform) and once that is done we should be able to contribute to Apple MessagePad without any issues. The content should be copy and pasted to the article that needs the least amount of content moved. At this point it might just be best to leave it as it is. You can request to merge the history here WP:REPAIR. ~ Paul^T+/_C 22:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)