What I Witnessed at the Revolution of the Newton

By Marie D'Amico, 

My husband , and some of his co-workers, have spent the past six months working in our house finishing Newton . Since I have this team living in my house, I have an extraordinary window on the development of a new product. Newton started off as a Mac II-sized screen with a pen and through evolution, revolution, and subversion ended up as a Star Trek-like communicator. The Newton development years were full of enough political and personal intrigue to satisfy any pulp fiction devotee.

Of course, to make it sell one would need to write in some sex scenes, but that's why it's called fiction.

Design. Repeat As Necessary. During the design and programming process, every feature of Newton has been revised to the n3 degree. The icons have been redrawn about 500 times. I haven't seen a group of people consider minute aspects of a picture since my brothers bought a Farrah Fawcett poster in 1977.

The menu wording has been agonized over so much that they're thinking of exhuming Roget for a final edit. The filing system was changed after some anal retentive users, myself included, didn't like it. I told them not to listen to a lawyer, but at least I've never hired an illegal baby sitter.

Recognition, the cause of the most Rogaine use, is surprisingly accurate. With some training, it can now recognize even a doctor's handwriting. No one can comprehend what's he's written, but that's what Version 1.1 is for.

My favorite feature is the trash can animation. Since the Judge in the Apple/Microsoft lawsuit ruled that the trash can is the only feature protectible in Macintosh, I tell all my clients to put a trash can somewhere in their GUI.

  The Consistency Hobgoblin. Newton is the future, although it may take a few generations of the technology to refine it. I hope that, unlike Macintosh, its competition attempts something different. I know it's hard but, believe me, if you feed hackers enough Pepperidge Farm cookies and Haagen-Dazs ice cream, they can design anything.

Otherwise, in 1997, PDAs are all going to look boringly similar to the prototypes in our living room. A quick look at some of Newton's competitors (both past and present) demonstrate that a scary consistency already exists.

Momenta: Couldn't think of anything new and left 14 minutes remaining on the Warholian clock of fame. Redeeming Feature: Aptly named.

Zoomer: Saved money by using Newton's plastics mold. Redeeming Feature: Not sure who's zooming who.

EO: Used blurry Newton CES videotape for TV commercial. Hey guys, that was 100 icon revisions ago. Redeeming Feature: Used hunky Tom Selleck for voiceover.

Aha!: It's the recognition, stupid. Redeeming Feature: Stikeleather's name - Who can forget it?

General Magic: Did you see Newton and realize that an $800 e-mail machine just won't cut it? Redeeming Feature: Atkinson and Hertzfeld.

When I look at Newton, I think James Dean driving a cool, red Porsche. When I look at its current competitors, I think Luke Perry sputtering along in a green Nissan Sentra. Try graduating from high school and then designing.

It's very quiet in our house now that the Newton development team is back at Apple. All l can do now is hope that Apple remembers what happened to James Dean and veers away when it sees that truck pulling out in front of it. Being a dead legend is fodder only for the history books.

Communications

© 2006 MacWEEK