The Author – Bart Busschots
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Mar
7
iPhone – the Successful Newton
Filed Under Computers & Tech on March 7, 2008 at 3:50 pm
It’s been over a decade since Apple released the last of it’s Newton message pads. The Newton was revolutionary, technically advanced and a head of its time. Technologically it was a marvel, commercially it was a flop. The world simply wasn’t ready. What has changed? I’d suggest that the most important change is not the advent of the iPhone’s amazing touch screen, or it’s fancy graphics capabilities. There are all great but they are not the crucial difference that will make the iPhone a success. That big difference is wireless connectivity. A Newton was a dead-end. The only way to get things in or out of your Newton was by tethering it to your computer. With the iPhone you are permanently connected.
What we’ve seen of the iPhone so far has been fantastic. It’s little brother the iPod Touch is also a fabulous machine. But we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. With the unbelievably full and open SDK released yesterday we’ve seen the birth of the second phase of the iPhone (and the iPod Touch), the point where it becomes more than a cellphone, PDA, mobile internet device & music player. The iPhone has become a real computer you can carry in your pocket. Remember, the iPhone has more computing power than the desktop you were using only a decade ago. The demos during yesterday’s Apple event really brought that home to me, particularly the one by EA Games and SEGA. I hadn’t dared to hope for such an open SDK. I’m so glad my predictions were wrong.
Keep an eye on the iPhone/iPod Touch, we haven’t seen the half of what this great platform can do yet!
[tags]Apple, iPhone, Newton, SDK[/tags]
Have you heard that sun has developed a version of it JVM for the iphone. That surely means a huge library of ready to go apps already around for the J2ME platform as well as a huge community of J2ME programmers who can turn their skills to the Iphone.
Sun have also announced that the modified version of the JVM will allow Java heads as much access to iphone specific functionality (such as duel touch screen and wifi) as the proprietary Apple sdk – A bold statement but worthy target
The only problem is (as I understand it) everything still needs to go through ITunes which means apple will be able to stifle the freeware market.
Hi Seanie,
The iPhone JVM is indeed good news. I wouldn’t be too worried about Apple stifling free apps. They went out of their way to make it clear that free apps would be free on the iPhone. In fact, Apple are bearing the hosting cost for free apps so they don’t appear to be hostile towards them.
Bart.
These are the same people who charge extra for a ringbone of a song you already paid for not to mention they’ll be keen to keep 3rd party developers happy. I foresee a point where free alternatives to commercial apps mean the choice between squashing some or all freeware or losing 3rd party support and profit.
I take your point and I quite like apple as a company, their intentions seem good. But they are a company and there stand to potentially lose out on a lot of money if they allow freeware onto the Iphone
As far as the JVM I’m very excited to see the support for bluetooth, wifi, duel touch. Then the compulsory Eclipse plugin, maybe a WYSIWYG Editor by the end of the year.
Still can’t afford one )-;