On 7 Jan 2002, Cees de Groot wrote:

> What's the major difference between, say, PalmOS and Newton that makes the
> latter so much better?

PalmOS does what it is intended to, and does it quite well.  That is, it's
intent is to provide a damn good electronic organizer, not a more
generally applicable operating system for small portable computers.  WinCE
and the NewtonOS aim for that area.

Said in a different way: PalmOS accomplishes its intent well.  However, on
a hand-held computer I want something more than an organizer.

What did the Newton have over PalmOS?

* High-level language: NewtonScript was a pretty high-level language
inspired by Self, Lisp, and Smalltalk.  It made applications development
pretty easy.  To get everything out of the PalmOS as you can, you use C.
There is Java (waba) and some RAD environments for the Palm, but they
restrict you in a way that is common with RADs. Like in Smalltalk,
performance critial functions could be written in C/C++.

* Data soups: the Newton stored it's data into "soups," which were object
databases.  While the PalmDB format has some overlapping benefits which I
won't go into, the Newton Soup System could store any object, of any size.

* Suberb UI: Like the PalmOS, the NewtonOS was designed from the ground up
to be operated by a stylus on a mmall screen. In this respect, the PalmOS
has copied quite a bit from the Newton OS.  This is a good thing, but it
still needs to be recognized.  There are lots of aspects of the Newton UI
that just make so much sense; there isn't any one widget I feel deserves
to be ranted about, but it was very well designed. This isn't a surprise,
coming from Apple.

* The routing button: Allowed most any type of data to be faxed, printed,
emailed, uploaded, or communicated in any other way for which there was a
Routing plug-in.  Many apps would allow you to email arbitrary data
objects.  While some would convert it to an open format like RTF, other
apps with no real equivalent would just serialize the object, allowing
another Newton user to pick up that email and deal with the data.

* _Real_ handwriting recognition: To me, this is probably the most
important to me.  I like taking all of my class notes on a PDA, and doing
so with Graffiti would be impossible. (I've known people who have tried)
We're talking about 3000-level biology courses, mostly.  I get probably a
98% correct recognition rate.  1.7% of those incorrectly recognized are
corrected with a double tap (which looks up the word recognized with that
closest in the dictionary, as well as other possibilities based on the
handwriting), and with perhaps 0.3% needing a re-write of the word.  HWR
is modeless- you can write symbols, numbers, and words without switching
modes like you do in a lot of other HWR and character recognition systems.
At least for me, I can kinesttetically remember how to write a word
quite automatically, whereas in a character recognition scheme, I often
have to think for a fraction of a second about how to spell the word.

* Larger screen: This has nothing to do with the PalmOS itself, but all
available PalmOS devices.  Such a small screen holds very little.  This is
especially important in taking notes.  Even if there is no real HWR, a big
screen is still a big plus for writing in an un-recognized scribble like
some people do in Palm OS to take a "quick" note.

* Great internet support: While it was lacking in some respects, the
Newton's networking was quite well.  I have a standard PCMCIA ethernet
card for mine.  I would have a bunch of news sites and my
email automatically downloaded right before I catch the bus, for reading
on the bus and throughout the day when I'm waiting around, or killing time
between classes.  While the Palm has AvantGo, the Newton's solution is
self-contained, requiring no host computer to download, cache, convert or
transfer this data.  I would take my ethernet dongle with me, and grab my
email anywhere around school.  And because I could easily install
applications through Newt's Cape (web browser) or NewtFTP, I've only
connected my Newton to a host computer via serial cable a few times.

* Good battery life: While the Palm has really amazing battery life, the
Newton still pulls for a couple weeks, but with a lot more of a "real"
computer going on:  162 MHz StrongARM, 480x320 (maybe around 5.5"x3.5")
screen, two PCMCIA slots.

* A decent stylus: This one applies to every other bleeding PDA I've ever
seen.  The Newton came with an actually *pen* sized stylus.  IMO, far more
natural for writing down more than an address and phone number than with
one of those toothpics that come with nowadays!

There's probably a lot more, but I need to shut up before I convince
myself to sell my iPAQ 3150 and just cling to my Newton for the next 20
years. (the iPAQ is for Squeaking!)

Regards,
Aaron

  Aaron Reichow  ::  UMD ACM Pres  ::  http://www.d.umn.edu/~reic0024/
  "civilization is a limitless multiplication of
                unnecessary necessities."                :: mark twain