From: Jon Glass (jonglass_at_usa.net)
Date: Fri Feb 14 2003 - 13:02:30 PST
on 2/14/03 2:33 AM, Peter H. Coffin at hellsop_at_ninehells.com wrote:
> 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.
I'm not sure about the "killer app" idea. In my mind, the Newton itself was
the killer app. Pocket Quicken came on my 120, and was an essential part of
it for about two months. In that two months, it corrupted my data, making it
unreadable twice. In the end, I bought Pocket Money. But this was one of the
problems that the Newton faced. There were supposed to be two killer apps
for the Newton, PQ and Act!. Both were coddled by Apple, and expectations
were high for both. Unfortunately, both, in the end, were miserable failures
for one reason. They both missed the concept of the Newton. Both apps took
the self-contained concept of the desktop and transferred it to the Newton.
But the Newton was not about one, killer app, but interoperability. I could
enter a name once into my Names app, and now every other app on the Newton
could access it. The Newton cried out for little apps that did one thing,
and did it very well, not replacing the internal apps, but extending them,
while being almost invisible to the user. It is these apps that, to this day
are still the most important ones--More Info, Dateman, Address Access, and
others. Other utilities tweak the system, like Dashboard. Still others are
self-standing, adding completely new features, yet integrating as much as
possible and necessary with the built-in data. I think of Pocket Money and
MPG as two excellent examples. Then, one cannot forget the communication
tools, such as email, which all use the same I/O Box routines, but have
their own ways of working.
If there was ever a missing "killer app" for the Newton, it was a solid,
standards-compliant web browser that allowed all the goodies, and worked
quickly and reliably. There are good web browsers, but they are all limited
by the Newton itself, so they cannot be blamed, but this is a glaring
omission that has never been overcome. But, even this came late in the life
of the Newton. So, we cannot look there for the failure of the Newton.
I think we should look at the beginnings of the Newton's life to find why it
failed. I think it failed right at the beginning, and it was all downhill
from there. Looked at like this, the reason for its failure would appear to
be rather simple. Apple never really made a business case for the Newton,
because nobody could conceive needing one. The shift in thinking necessary
to make the Newton acceptable was probably too vast for Apple marketing to
overcome. One thing we must remember is that all products to come after the
Newton stood on the Newton's shoulders. Their task was much easier. And when
you add in the lower price (no need for the word 'point') :-) and simpler
interface and more limited functionality that somebody could grasp, you have
a winning combination. The Newton was simply too much too soon. The sudden
popularity of the Newton shows us that it probably would make a killing on
the market today, were it to overcome a few of its weaknesses--color screen,
smaller size while retaining its larger screen and resolution--among others.
It's all an exercise in futility, however, discussing this. Newton is
dead-long live the Newton. :-)
-- -Jon Glass Krakow, Poland <jonglass_at_usa.net> "You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in their struggle for independence." -- C. A. Beard -- 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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