On iPhones and Newtons

The biggest similarity between the iPhone and the Newton is that both have been overhyped.

People were expecting too much from the Newton (eg, flawless handwriting recognition) and when it fell short it was lampooned, most notably in the Doonesbury comic strip.

I can sense that opinionated and hostile sites like Engadget are just waiting to dump on the iPhone when one of its features proves not to be absolutely flawless.

However, similarities aside, the biggest difference between the iPhone and the Newton is that the iPhone has Steve Jobs as its ultimate "taste architect" whereas the Newton had John Sculley.

An illustration should make clear what I mean:

Steve oozes pride when he talks about the iPhone, shows it off lovingly (that comment at the recent shareholder's meeting about needing to pry it from his cold dead heads to get it away from him), and has been spotted publicly using it on every occasion he himself has been spotted (that Flickr shot of his son's soccer game for instance). You get the feeling he probably sleeps with it under his pillow.

John Sculley, after the Newton was released, was spotted on a plane making notes ... in an appointment book. No Newton in sight.

Clearly the Newton was far better. It had user installable applications and user replaceable batteries, areas where the iPhone currently falls short.

The iPhone, unlike the Newton, has two things that will ensure its success. First is the iPod - the world's leading mp3 player. Going beyond that, this will be the first "true widescreen iPod video".

Secondly, OSX. Unlike the Newton, the iPhone is built on an OS that the world is familiar with. It already has a reputation of stability, unlike the the Window OS.

As Steve mentioned in his keynote in January, almost everybody has a phone. They're jumping into a market where people like to renew their gadgets every 1 ~ 1.5 years. Everybody wants an iPod and knows the reputation of OSX. I think its a match made in heaven.

Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to use a Newton, but heard much about it's streamlined abilities. In short, my hope is that iPhone builds on each nuance the Newton had, as shown in the Newton video.

and then i make a typo on intended. i should have quit.

duhhhhhhhhh (mocking himself)

#10 the intened joke on the word speeling is so obvious. duuuuuuuuuuuuuh. oh excuse me i mispelled duh.

I like how the MacWeb and the rest of the media give judgement on a product that only a very limited number of people have actually had the pleasure to use. Writing articles based on limited facts and information from one CEO and his website.

Reserve all judgement, opinions, questions, and comparisons till next month!

Scanning #3's post for spelling errors.....

Scanning complete, 1 error detected

lol

@ #3

You misspelled "spelling".

The main difference is that the Newton, like most PDAs, was a solution to a problem most people didn't have. Most people who bought them had to work hard to come up with reasons to actually use them (carry them along, take them out of your bag, start it up, etc) instead of scribbling things on notepads like always.

The iPhone, on the other hand, has at least two eminently useful features that don't require any behavior modifications - the iPod features and the cellphone features.