The iPad, the Newton, & the "Of Course" Model of Innovation Diffusion | Hacker News Reader

The iPad, the Newton, & the "Of Course" Model of Innovation Diffusion

cheerfulsw.com

44 pointsahoyhere31 comments

Leaving aside the somewhat creepy Jobs-worship in this article, I don't think this is right:

The problem with the Newton wasn’t any physical or technical problem. Those are easy to surmount. The problem that broke the Newton was that nobody was prepared for it. There was no mental slot in people’s heads that the Newton could glide into. Nothing like it had ever existed before. It was revolutionary. It was a total surprise.

Didn't the Newton appear in the middle of a fad for little PDA-type computers which busy-looking executive types would pull out to painstakingly type their appointments on? I seem to remember them being quite popular for a little while in the early 90s.

Ooh, here's an article from 1993 about the launches of various PDAs:

http://www.faqs.org/abstracts/Business-general/PDA-devices-s...

However the keyboard-based Casio etc versions outsold the Newton for pretty much the reasons dismissed in the article -- the Newton was too expensive and the handwriting recognition didn't work very well.

Apple even coined the term "PDA", when they announced it in 92, either simultaneous to or predating the announcements of those other devices. The Zoomer was also announced in 92.

Whether one outsold the other is pretty irrelevant, since it's a contest between losers.

More importantly, the mere fact of their existence doesn't compare to having held similar devices in their hands and used them daily for 3+ years prior to the introduction.

It will be interesting to see if anyone else's slate-type computer can match Apple's this time around.

Psion "PDAs" were on the market years ahead of the Newton, just the term wasn't coined.

the clamshell design fit in the 'I wish my laptop was smaller' space...

Scully oversold the Newton idea to the extent that the MessagePad 110 seemed inept. By the time the 2100 was released, the Newton brand was sullied enough to ensure its transformative ideas would not take hold. We settled for a decade of calendar/address book PDAs and incremental laptop evolution, to arrive somewhere in the same neighborhood as the 2100.

Mac OS X, iPods, and iPhones seem to be evidence that Apple and Jobs overcame the need for revolutionary, high-risk-high-reward leaps in favor of ratcheted, stepwise refinement that draws the market toward the same location in design space without risking quarter-after-quarter of red ink, product shortages, blown deadlines and vaporware saviors. I don't think it's a coincidence that the underlying software is (openly code-named) "Darwin".

Can't disagree with you regarding Scully, either… which is probably part and parcel why Jobs has never deviated from pre-announcing only when the products were completed, just not shipping.

Re: Darwin specifically, Apple actually owns (or used to own) mammals.org, well before the acquisition of NeXT. That type of reference is definitely an Apple thing.

Am i the only one who can't read all those "the iPad will change our world" prophecies anymore? It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, repeated and echoed by blogs and news media, people already buy the iPad like crazy. Most of the people probably don't even know why to buy it, only that they have to buy it to stay cool and have the current supergadget according to every news source on this world.

Just so you know, I agree with you. Especially because most of those articles are written by nincompoops who overlook entirely where it really will change the world.

And, so you know, that's not what the article is about. It's about sales numbers.

Have you used it yet? I don't mean that in a negative way, it's just that most people I know had no interest at all in the iPad until they saw mine. The hype can't hurt, but this is a product that simply sells the shit out of itself.

This is exactly what I thought about the first iPod. I really didn't think it was that big of a deal because there were other mp3 players on the market. Then I actually got my hands on one... Wow.

I am afraid of going into an Apple store and walking out with an unplanned purchase of an iPad.

My favorite feature of the iPad is its $39 Newton wetsuit case. Anyone fortunate enough to have owned a message pad knows the good vibes that flowed from holding their little rubberized-metal gifts from the future. There may be no soup, no NewtonScript, and no book maker, but a lot of the Newton's heart and soul is in the iPad and the iPhone. I don't know who created the iPad or how well they knew the MessagePad 2100, but it is a milestone in personal computing technology that deserves a worthy successor like the iPad and an homage like the wonderful wetsuit wrap.

The case is a scuzz magnet, doesn't work with the dock, and has no clasp so you still have to worry that it is going to fall open in your bag. Your post is cool because I honestly can't tell if it is sarcasm or not. Kudos!

No sarcasm. I don't love the case qua case, but for it's feel in hand and as a reference to the Newton's case material. I'd prefer a Newtonized bottom in lieu of the wrap, but you can't have everything in one swell foop.

And no "poof!" when you delete something. And no diagonal drag-select for multiple lines of text. And no drawing a carat when you wanted to add text.

But I know what you mean.

Also: swell foop. Hooray for spoonerisms!

I'm not sure I agree with everything he says (particularly the stuff about pundits trashing, the iPad; a few have, but I'd say the balance of press has been pretty heavily tilted in apple's favor), but I'm kind of blown away that I haven't seen a blog post comparing the iPad and Newton before now. Such an obvious comparison to make in hindsight.

"Amy" is typically a girl's name.

Why are people downvoting an author asking that people maybe take a moment to check whether they're responding to a woman before they write "he"? Is it that much hassle to check a byline?

A small, italic, grey-on-white pair of words, one of which is an uncapitalized name

versus

The vast majority of tech writers and geeks in general being male

Downvoting the guy pointing out the incorrect assumption is unwarranted, yeah, but the assumption is one that'll be correct really, really often.

Which doesn't mean you shouldn't point it out. (Although yes, that is something I'm fixing when I get around to finishing my design.)

By the way - the "guy pointing out the incorrect assumption" is a girl.

I'm laughing. :)

Yes. I make no apologies for the lack of a gender-neutral human pronoun in the English language. If I don't know someone's gender, I pick one or use awkward constructions involving "the author". Feel free to inform the English language standards body of their oversight so they can correct it for the next version.

But yeah, downvoting a correction is silly.

Silly me. I should be better about that. Apologies.

A significant gap in this article is a discussion of the complements that are adding tremendous value to the iPad (and Apple's other recent products). Imagine the fate of the iPad if there was no AppStore, no iBooks, and no iTunes; a pretty piece of hardware with few applications and no media content.

The idea that the Ipad was/is obvious is intersting and considering what else might be obvious and coming from Apple I have to say the 7" rumor seems logical. After playing with the ipad for a few minutes I was struck by two things: 1) it is heavier than I expect or would probably enjoy laying in bed, and 2), the screen is larger than I personally need.

So for me I think a 7" Ipad would be ideal. But I'm not trying to replace a netbook or laptop with this machine so maybe that's part of it too.

It's not too heavy to be good in bed, but too slippery to play with in the bathtub without its rubber jacket.

My friend and I were talking about this the other day. If you want to rock the world, pick a final product that is years - even a decade or more - away and which rocks, and reason back all the potential earlier versions to the present, then build the next gen iteration. Easier said than done of course, and making sure each iteration is a hit is even harder.

The aricle is neglecting the most important features of the iPad: video and wireless. It's like looking at a TI-83 and comparing it to a modern cell phone and wondering why nobody walked around with a TI-83 in their pocket except engineers.

The expectations of the world in re: video and wireless were completely different in 1993. Were you there?

What's your point? Such a device does not have a mainstream user base without wireless or video.

I don't think you can underestimate the importance of having apps already available at launch time. Great article, though. I really enjoyed the Le Corbusier piece as well. Please write more!

While this article does a fantastic job expounding on reasons the Newton failed, it seems to implicitly assert that people are "prepared" for the iPad, and that there is a space in their minds for such a device now. I would challenge this assertion. My own preferences notwithstanding, the only people I've heard even contemplate getting an iPad are people with 2+ MacBooks. In other words: "yes, but."

Perhaps all this article really meant to say is that the cult of Mac is eminently more powerful today than 20 years ago - in which case yes, I agree entirely.

Job's Apple uses a combination of design, technology and marketing to turn their products into status symbols.

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