A mere 28 months since first being mooted (CI No 1,634), Newton is ready for lift-off. It hits the US on August 2 and the UK on September 16, priced at $700 and an unconfirmed UKP750 here. Apple Computer Inc’s Personal Digital Assistant, the handheld Newton MessagePad can deliver on some of its promises: it captures handwriting, keyboard text and graphics; it organises diary, calendar and address book; it can send facsimile, print and beam to another Newton. Beaming is for the truly lazy, to send brief messages across a one yard distance without wire or cable. But as yet it’s without cellular abilities and cannot receive facsimile. Future services include a wireless messaging service, possibly based on the Skytel System frequencies, which will give alpha-numeric paging and messaging capabilities. Electronic mail will later be available via the NewtonMail subscriber service and an optional modem. Sharing with Macintosh computers or personal coputers comes through the previously-announced Newton Connection kit (CI No 2,200). MessagePad uses a 20MHz Advanced RISC Machines Ltd 610 RISC processor (rejected by EO Comunications in favour of the AT&T Co Hobbit RISC for its own handheld assistant), has 4Mb ROM with 640Kb RAM, one PCMCIA Type 2 card slot, a LocalTalk-compatible serial port for printing anywhere on the LocalTalk network, infra-red datalink for beaming and a Sharp Corp 336 by 240 low-power reflective screen.
Fun to use
It is certainly fun to use: it is quick to learn, you can doodle, erase errors with a scrawl as in cursive text, and a puff of smoke burns off the mistake. It has an in and out tray to pick up data, or store faxes ready for sending. And the technology is adaptive, so it learns your work habits, such as page formats, or where to put an incoming message. Apple wants to set Newton as the market standard, and is encouraging a broad licensing program within the computing, communications and consumer electronics industries for the operating system, Newton Intelligence. Takers to date include Sharp, Kyushu Matsushita Electric Corp and Motorola Inc. Curiously, this is not yet trademarked. There are four parts to the system: text recognition architecture which responds to the printed, cursive or mixed word; graphics recognition; information architecture in the object-based database; and communications architecture based on wired and wireless connections. That all sounds terrific, but as it’s not all available at launch, early purchasers will be limited to the must-have techno freaks and corporates taking it on trial. it could be a while before general individuals and corporates commit to buy, by which the shelves will be full of rival options. But of course this is an Apple product, so the firm is keen to differentiate it from personal computers: this has focussed – that means limited – functions, new architectures optimised for mobility and comunications (though some, like cellular communications are not available for some time) and its new specific applications (as long as the claimed 1,500 interested developers come up with the goods). Apple hopes to have a dozen applications available by the end of the current quarter, 50 by Christmas, and 300 by the end of 1994. Some will be sold independently, some badged by Apple. MessagePads will be localised with all major languages by early 1994. And lastly, a few words from Craig Sears-Black, Apple’s PDA Group project leader: The waters have been muddied over the past few months as to what a PDA is. Are they so much clearer now? – Kate Potter
