[AlbertCory]

In working on my Book III (basically, the early 90s), I've done a ton of research on handheld devices and the money pit they were. Newton is not going to be any more than a footnote.

Jerry Kaplan's book Startup tells the story about how Sculley stabbed GO in the back with Newton -- actually, both GO and General Magic. They got a lot of press and flopped miserably. And of course, let's not forget Momenta (as easy as that would be, given that they failed so fast).

Meantime, Palm finally figured out something people would buy and use, by scaling back expectations and building a device that did something valuable.

[wrs]

Two of the most important differences in design assumptions between Newton and Palm, from my POV on the Newton team:

1. Newton was designed with “natural” pen-based interactions as a core design goal. That had huge effects on the entire product from the OS to the UX, including the need to recognize normal writing. The Palm Pilot was designed as a fairly standard PDA OS with the keyboard replaced by an oddly modified set of character shapes that had to be learned by users before they could enter text. We thought that would be a deal-breaker for potential Palm users — we were wrong!

2. Newton was designed as a standalone system, the next generation of computing after desktops. The assumption was that it could be your only computer. Syncing to a PC/Mac was an afterthought. Palm was designed as an adjunct device for a PC, so its capabilities were far less and the sync functionality was core to the system.

There are lots of other differences but many can be traced back to those two. For example, the huge difference in the tech specs and therefore the cost of the devices is directly related to both of those assumptions.

[EricE]

Number 2 was the big stickler for me - and it was frustrating that Apple didn't get this when the original Mac had AppleTalk built in from day 1! If only Hypercard had better networking support and a server - we'd be surfing stacks instead of the web.

[AlbertCory]

You're right. Other failures back then were also trying to do that.

Unfortunately, it wasn't generally accepted that those two goals were not achievable. That's engineering for you: figuring out what's actually possible.

There was a little sticker you could put on the back of your Palm Pilot that reminded you of the Graffiti language. As you said, it was not a deal-breaker.

[georgeecollins]

Startup is a really good book. People should be very wary of power of monopolies, MSFT also really messed with GO and General Magic.

The example of Palm vs Newton is great because it shows how clear goals trump excellent technology. Newton had this amazing OS where you could turn it on or off at any moment and preserve state. All data was available to all apps. And with that technology -- and probably some other choices-- and a great processor at the time (relative to Palm) it was useless because it was so slow. A handheld device cannot ever be slow. Palm did very little well and survived up until smart phones.

[jhbadger]

And Palm's "Graffiti" actually existed as a software package for the Newton by Palm before the Palm Pilot! It was popular in the early days of the Newton because the handwriting recognition in the first versions of the Newton OS were pretty bad (Remember Doonesbury's "Egg Freckles" comic, or The Simpsons' "Eat up Martha" when the bullies were trying to write "Beat up Martin"?)

[AlbertCory]

There is another really good book that's sadly out of print: Piloting Palm by Andrea Butter & David Pogue (yes, that David Pogue, from the Nature PBS shows).

tip: don't pay the $80 for a new one. I got a used one for $8, and it came within 3-4 days.

[CharlesW]

> Startup is a really good book.

A Google search is surprisingly unhelpful at a finding the book you mean. Who is the author?

[chongli]

Jerry Kaplan.

[ngcc_hk]

Precisely for a guy who bought the Newton to USA and found it impossible to use in a Gartner conference which gave palm a free trial. You returned it and credit card not charged. I still have that Newton in storage but run thru many palm and typing (with treo phone) thousand words email back to others. All good.