From: Joel M. Sciamma (joel_at_inventors-emporium.co.uk)
Date: Tue Aug 02 2005 - 17:02:44 PDT
Brian,
A very interesting glimpse at another platform - thank you.
> It's hard not to draw comparisons
> between the Newton and Zodiac.
Putting aside all the technical, political and financial issues
surrounding these projects, there must be something about them that
we latched onto but most people felt unmoved by.
I suppose any device that is complex enough to be interesting is also
complex enough to be a bore.
The Newt disguises complexity better than any device I know yet it
requires tending (organising info into folders, backups, copying data
around, installations etc.) and liberating the full potential
requires some commitment. The return to the user must be worth the
effort.
Most modern mobile phones can be tortured into doing PDA-like things
but, given the poverty of the interfaces usually provided, it's
surprising anyone bothers. Most probably don't.
It seems that those of us who actually want a good PDA are too few
and those who are motivated to create them will always have trouble
finding a mass market.
The big money approach is the tablet - a PC or Mac shrunk down to
genuinely portable dimensions with an interface tailored for the pen.
I have been playing with HWR on my new G4 PowerBook and it works
fine, just like the Newt. I'm not a huge fan of OS X but it would do
the job if Apple recognise the critical difference between a laptop
interface and a pen-based one. The elements are there but is the
will? The perpetual redesign of Aqua shows that an interface can be
created that would work on the small screen.
Perhaps the only way a new PDA is going to come about is by
repurposing existing hardware. For all intents an purposes an iPaq
running Einstein would be a Newton. Same goes for Linux builds or
anything else that the HW can be persuaded to run for doing what we
want the way we want.
Joel.
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