Newton beats UMPC and maybe the $100 laptop

Whew, after the last post I think I need to something a little nicer.

CNet did a comparison between a Samsung UMPC (small form factor TabletPC) and a 10 year old Newton 2000, and the Newton won. This is interesting not just because it is good to still be able to poke fun at new Microsoft products (Vista jokes aren't even funny anymore, it is just too tragic). Face it, Microsoft has done a good job of marketing the TabletPC in education, but it still lacks a lot of basic, day to day functionality. Notice that convertible tables vastly outweigh tablets that don't have a keyboard. It is for the simple reason that the user experience really is not designed around the idea of a purely pen interface -- no legacy thinking tied to a keyboard or even a mouse. I wish I had more time to go into depth here on what that would mean (tie pressure to accelerated navigation, fast forwarding through data, menuing not tied to hierarchies based on linear lists). In a strange way, it is some of the same issues that come up in thinking of computer navigation for accessibility.

I think the important lesson that should be remembered in cnet's comparison is that is ultimately is not the hardware that matters. It really is the software. The newton wins because it is designed around a pen interface. A lot of things flow from that logically, including unique decisions on how data should be stored and represented. What happened to the Newton for myself is tragic, because the world could really use something like it now, using slightly faster hardware, better battery life, built in wireless. Kind of the like the Nokia 770, but more like.....a Newton.

And this is the thing that popped into my mind when I first heard of the MIT project to build a sub $200 PC for developing countries......the one computer per child initiative. While a commodity hardware platform is a nice idea, I prefer the idea of focusing on the software, and make it work on any kind of commodity computing platform that is being mass produced at the moment. Fast, cheap and out of control. For sure.

That would be a nice thing for Apple to do. Give it up, and let people have at it with the Newton. Make it run on the Nokia 770, or my cell phone. It could unlock devices that may be destined for the rubbish heap, and give them new life.

.....and then I woke up.

--hal