“Events in the past 30 days lead me to conclude something unthinkable just one month ago: Apple — yeah, I said it: Apple! — will ship the first ever successful small computer. Call it the Newton on Crack (or, more accurately, on Mac),” Mike Elgan writes for Computerworld.
“AppleInsider said this week that Apple is working on an updated Newton MessagePad — basically a big iPod Touch with additional PDA functionality. The Mac OS X Leopard-based mobile mini-tablet PC will be 1.5 times the size of an iPhone, but with an approximate 720 x 480 high-resolution display. The site estimates that the new device will ship in the first half of 2008,” Elgan writes.
“If true (and some believe it isn’t), this rumor is very good news. If Apple ships an iPod Touch, but with good PIM (personal information manager) functionality, an optional wireless keyboard and good battery life for under $1,000, they win,” Elgan writes.
“As I’ve said before in this space, Apple’s iPhone user interface is a glimpse of the future, not only of future Apple mobile computers, but desktops and the future of all PCs as well. It’s inevitable that Apple will ship a tablet Mac that works like the iPhone… Right now, the only company with a prayer of succeeding in the small computer space is also the only company that hasn’t even shown a prototype — Apple,” Elgan writes.
Full article here.
MDN Magic Word: Plans as in: We do not know what plans Appple has?
I hope they win with one under $600.
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It scares me when Elgan has something good to say about Apple.
Bogus setup to make the stock fall.
Why clutter up your lineup when you can
achieve the same thing with software updates to the iPod Touch and the iPhone? BOGUS, I say!!
Simplicity is what has worked for Apple.
Keep your product line simple, also.
The average sheep won’t take the time to distinguish between each product.
Keep it simple, stupid. And, while I’m on a roll, no FM tuner for the iPod…buy it separately.
I don’t know Always wanted something like the computing hand held slates seen on Star Trek. The iPhone and touch are nice but still a bit small in form factor. Works for some people but not everyone. Give me a touch tablet the width and height of a paperback with wifi and room to see enough of a doc to really edit it and I’m sold.
Not too small, not too big, but just right!
Call it Newton for the marketing and I think Apple will have another winner on their hands.
MDN word “help” is on the way.
They’ll dominate with a device that isn’t even out yet! hahahah
Damn….Apple is the PIMP Daddy.
i hope apple will welcome 3rd party developers just like palm os, winmob and symbian. make the game play just like real mac osx for the mac computer.
I hope they make it and I hope the call it The Newton.
I was going to buy an iPod Touch just to be able to visit a certain website for work as I was out an about in the city. My only hesitation is that the screen of the iPod Touch is a bit too small for my needs.
This would be perfect, just perfect. Add an email client, an IM client and the other usual suspects and it’d be what the Newton was suppose to be but never could become (due to limitation in available technology, both hardware and software)
The same people hollering for a Newton are the same people who hollered for a headless Mac…well, you got it, and then not a peep is heard.
Jobs will never call anything the Newton…you folks let the Newton rest in peace. Have any of you realized yet that a tablet is not really what people want.
Now, a much better idea is a 10″ Macbook. Think about it!.
It all comes down to Apple’s trojan horse – OS X.
I can’t imagine Steve allowing the name “Newton” to have a new life. I believe that was a John Scully project.
As for rumored the size, it will be perfect for health-care providers. The old Newton was too big for the pocket of our ‘scrubs’, while the iPhone is just slightly too small for entering information into browser-based forms. Current generation tablets are also too bulky to be truly portable.
Hopefully this is true, because it will be an exciting platform that will actually work for at least one segment of mobile workers.
Okay, let’s all weigh in. What’s the maximum price you’d pay for one of those?
Me? If it’s under $1000, I’ll get one within a few months after it comes out. If it’s under $700, I’ll be at the Apple store the day they come out.
About the name of the device: What do you think about…
the MacPod
? ?
A hybrid of the Mac and the iPod…
I think they’ll succeed because they’ll most likely scale up the iPhone/iPod Touch with more power and the facility to add stuff/features as opposed to the method of other companies who have basically tried to shoehorn everything from the traditional computer environment into a device totally unsuited to it. Desktopss/laptops have only in the last few years become of high enough resolution to really make sense of the whole faux desktop environment which they purport to emulate. A little portable “iNewton” shouldn’t be that.
I don’t think It’ll be called the Newton if the rumored product is real. Apple’s pretty good about killing products and not raising them from the dead. This rumor comes out every year about this mystical tablet mac or the return of the Newton. Besides the name Mac Nano would be better.
$1,099.99
said many times BEFORE Mike Elgan
and said many times BEFORE AppleInsider.
MacSlate. Preloaded with iWorks 08. Not iLife.
Intangant with Google Cloud Services. To appear Feb24th/2008.
Google’s gphone… is the MacSlate. To appear around Jan7th-30th 2008.
Which if preferred – call it the new Newton – fine.
But the name – well – it really matters not.
The orientation of the ARTISTS rendition of the new NEWTON is wrong. There is more of a chin to the MacSlate. Take the left and right sides of the concept from AppleInsider and place them on top and bottom… Then you have it.
gg
Dream on…the overall market for that kind of tablet is way too small. A 10″ Macbook touches the consideration of everybody out there. Apple isn’t in business to sell only a million or so units…they are in a market to sell 100 million or so units. Jobs will never put himself in the shadow of anyone, must less Sculley. Sculley’s Newton dream(although a good one) really left the rest of the product line hanging and almost killed Apple. Gil Amelio couldn’t see anything coming, but Sculley started it all. Should’ve stayed with the sugarwater.
I bet it will cost $1099 the first two months.. and then SJ will cut the price down to $699…
This way, the ANALyst will have another excuse to write about the demise of Apple, Enderle will give a ‘mixed’ review about why the device sucks and is the best thing around at the same time. Forbes and Lyons will go on talking about how Apple is the new Microsoft, 1 or 2 lawsuits about the price drop and/or battery duration will be filed. And in the meantime, I will go on saving the last dime so I can finally get MacPod even though the wife had forbidden me to do so, but when she sees it, she will want one for herself.
Introducing the MacPod. Business as un-usual.
if apple is begin to work with the new “newton“,then they should first make it useful to ipod touch and iphone in the network way.
Yes, I would imagine ths new device and other devices to dominate the small-computer market… because:
1) SERVICES like Google’s Cloud NET. 700Mhz free net.
2) SERVICES from AT&T;to connect to the Google Cloud Net.
3) SOFTWARE from Apple and Third Party using WEB2
4) HARDWARE that is CUSTOMIZED and DESIGNED in tangent to accomidate the SERVICES.
Wait, watch, research the compitition and hatch a innovative well rounded product with well crafted supportive services and you shall dominate the small-computer market.
This is the new APPLE.
Apple Inc.
Same Apple as always. Which shall protect it’s products.
The only thing changing for Apple is their direction with their sight and vision to INCLUDE a POST PC market of NEW devices. The iPOD showed the world their is this market… and when done right it can win. The New NEWTON – slate, tablet whatever shall be yet another device which is added to the line of iPHONE, iTOUCH. The true innovation (not invention) is Multi-Touch. And Apple has HEADED the industry FIRST to market with this technology. IT SHALL ONLY GROW!!!!
dd
1.5 x the size of the iphone? If true, what would be the point of that? How about a multi-touch tablet.
If you think about an ego thing, there’s not way in the world Steve Jobs will use the name of John Sculley’s pet project.
But most Newton users love the device. I never used it, but I remember it being very cool, the logo was great, and I don’t remember anything not to like. Marketing wise, it could be great to revive the Newton as the next generation of PDAs.
I don’t think I’d dislike a new line of Newtons
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Apple will not call this the New Newton.
I don’t think Jobs Liked the Newton.
And it has the wrong generalisation and feel of the OLD PDA days.
MacPod – sounds cool. Sure ties in with the media centric-ness cross over device and computer notition.
MacSlate is interesting too. Better then MacTablet.
Still… Apple will NOT use NEW______ whatever… Because next year it is not NEW.
Oh and MacNewtonSlateTablet whatever IS no way GoogleGuy the gPhone. THE gPHONE is the second generation iPhone(Mini) to give the masses 700Mhz wireless access phone service. So yes… it is an Apple AND Google marriage. But this Slate thing is not the gPhone.
YES
I already have my Newton… it’s Wi-Fi… has iPod features… but we all call it an iPhone.