From: Peter H. Coffin (hellsop_at_ninehells.com)
Date: Thu Feb 13 2003 - 17:33:00 PST
On Wed, Feb 12, 2003 at 07:19:21PM -0500, ben mccorkle wrote:
> all--
>
> i'm currently making my way through donald norman's book _the invisible
> computer_ (norman's known in academia for his work in
> pshychology/design/interface research, and in the "real" world for his R&D
> efforts at HP and apple). i thought his mixed remarks on the newton were
> rather...ahem...interesting:
>
> "One of the early PDAs, Apple's Newton, failed just after its introduction.
> Rightfully so. Its designers did not understand how it was to be used.
> They failed to provide utility to real people doing real work. Instead, the
> Newton provided a new form of general-purpose computer. It promised too
> much and delivered too little; however, the Newton did show the utility of
> small devices. The Newton made an excellent displayfor reference work such
> as maintenance manuals, city guides, and, in specialized markets, farm and
> insurance information. This is a legacy that should not be forgotten; it
> can still lead to a valuable product." (110)
>
> i'm curious as to how norman's assessment sits with the list; does the
> newton fail in its attempts to do "everything"? would a stripped-down,
> task-specific appliance make more sense to "real" people? do the members of
> newtontalk find these green bricks useful mainly because of the pleasures
> associated with tinkering and resurrecting? hey, i'm just asking...
I feel that (as a few others have mentioned) that where the problems
with dealing with the Newton were complicated and compounding:
1) Expensive pricing point - not a prohibative one for a dedicated
organization, especially since the laptops of the time provided similar
power levels at approximately 1.5x the price, but one high enough that
it kept even the very affluent curious away from the device.
2) A lack of "gee-whiz" software - Not that there weren't some really
amazing packages for some niche markets, but they were provided for the
vertical markets that bought in item 1. There wasn't, however, anything
to really grab the general public. Heck, even a good Klondike solitare
game would have been a start. Pocket Quicken was a fairly good hook, but
came late, and wasn't really a fun thing.
3) Inaccessable development tools - Apple's development toolkit,
required to do pretty much any development for the Newton, started out
costing about what the Newton did: $795. By version 1.5, it had dropped
to $300 or so, but that's still in addition to the $1000 or so for the
Newton and $1500 to $3000 for attendant development machine. Again, not
for the dabbler. Contrast this to the ][ series machines that came with
BASIC and the Macs that came with HyperCard or AppleScript, to at least
pretend to have something that the common user could experiment with.
Hindsight's much clearer, but I feel that one of the best ways to rage
this thing out would have been to give away the first version of the
development tools with purchase of a Newton and APDA membership. This
would allow upgrades of the dev tools to be charged for at some rate
that supports the tools enhancements, and makes it easier for the people
that were curious about the platform to get in and start programming
inexpensively (in incremental terms over the hardware cost),
encouraging more random users to try it. This leads to more software
quickly, and better chances of that "killer app" appearing.
-- 5. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness. --Peter Anspach "Evil Overlord" -- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries List FAQ/Etiquette/Terms: http://www.newtontalk.net/faq.html Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
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