Is Apple Newton’s Handwriting Recognition Better Than the reMarkable?

[@moosefuel]

This is the video we need but didn't know we needed!

[@AmigaLove]

Haha!! Thanks, @moosefuel, you made my day.

[@batteman]

Psion is my Newton here ;-) As usual, a great video, thx !

[@AmigaLove]

The Psion is *gorgeous* - really like that keyboard, too. Good to see you, Batteman!

[@michaelwallen738]

Superb (did I spell that right?) video! Now Im all over looking for newton for my "modest" MAC LCII! Super good quality and thought out video! excellente...

[@AmigaLove]

Thanks so much, Michael! If you do grab a Newton, keep an eye out for the final models, either the MessagePad 2000 or 2100. Those were the chefs kiss best ones made right before they pulled the plug. They provide the most options to explore, too. You'll also need to track down a cable converter if the one you eventually get doesn't come with one. It's that weird boxy adapter I show in the video when I use the physical keyboard.

[@markusjuenemann]

Well done!

[@AmigaLove]

Thanks so much, Markus. Glad you enjoyed it! Has been a passion project of mine for a while. Glad to get it out!

[@markusjuenemann]

@@AmigaLove It´s really appreciated!

[@folklorg]

Wow, lovingly made!

[@AmigaLove]

Thanks so much, @folklorg, I really appreciate it. Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for being here.

[@danielktdoranie]

I had a Newton in late 90s I got for free off a neighbour who a Lawyer and a Judge who took the Windows pill (got a PowerBook 5300 off him too). Anyway I used it a lot and spent a lot of time getting Newton to recognise my handwriting. Anyway, flash forward decades later and I buy an iPad and an Apple Pencil… it is true that we still haven’t gotten back to the ability of the Newton. Apple really sold the Newton poorly, they did what they always did and over sold it, what they needed to do was market it properly set expectations correctly

[@AmigaLove]

100%. I feel that they should have attempted to sell the device for less to get it into the hands of more customers, and the real reactions would have blunted the early criticism. By 1997 and os 2.0 the software was *fantastic* and far less cumbersome and unintuitive than Graffiti. But the true power of Palm was its better price point. Ironically, some of the excellent engineers at Palm (esp the software side) and Newton ultimately helped build the road to Apple's rebirth, and the iMac. Weird how things turn out sometimes.

[@danielktdoranie]

@@AmigaLove totally. I understand many of the engineers in General Magic went on to give us smartphones, a few of General Magic people went on to make the iPod and then iPhone and then the founder of Android worked at General Magic too

[@SensibleChuckle]

I just subbed. My career started because of the Amiga and I also had a Newton. I was just thinking about getting a newton 2100 but I can't see a way to install software with a pc. Nor transfer text from the newton to a PC. The best solution I see is to take photos of the screen and convert to text. So at this point the best newton would be my pixel with a keyboard. That just not as fun, netdy cool and inspiring to write material on. Buuut... It is more functional. Chromebook might be a solution too.

[@AmigaLove]

Thanks for the sub. Since I don't use PC/Windows in 2024 (except for an ancient Thinkpad with WinXP for retro software/projects) I'm not entirely sure. In general I think you'd have to get a cheap PC from the 90s and use it as a "bridge" machine. That era machine would have USB-A ports, and Apple did produce Newton-->PC connection software. Once on the old PC you could transfer to your modern machine in a number of ways. That's basically what I do on the Mac side of things. I can sync to really old machines running 7.5, or late-90s machines running 9.2. Once there I can save to USB or shoot it over WiFi via email. Software continued to be ported into OS X for a surprising amount of time. I'd go get an old PC and go that route if I were in your shoes.

[@winrg1234]

the remarkable is actually very hackable! it's pretty easy to get a shell on it and they've made toolchains public. it's not marketed or common, but it is very doable

[@AmigaLove]

That's very interesting. Didn't know that. I'm not a programmer but that's still pretty cool.

[@mindthreatx]

Loved the Newton. Really want a remarkable but the price and cloud based subscription is really off putting. Hopefully these companies that keep pushing paid for cloud stuff that simply doesn’t need to cost anything will figure this out before they falter completely.

[@AmigaLove]

Good news is the cloud service isn't a requirement. If you happen to have Google Drive or Dropbox you can integrate those services. But if you only want to use the tablet on its own, it does 95% of what you'd want (minus handwriting recognition or syncing) as it is. If you just want a top-shelf e-ink based paper notebook, I'd highly recommend getting a gen 1 reMarkable off Ebay. Good place to start. And with 8GB memory, you're not likely to run out of space any time soon just from your digital notebooks.

[@104d_3rr0r_vince]

AmigaBill at the end 🤣

[@AmigaLove]

Haha doood - that's *my* voice (imitating Amiga Bill). ;)

[@104d_3rr0r_vince]

@@AmigaLove You fooled me 😀

[@DisruptedSinner]

A friend of mine had a brand new Newton back in the day and it was awesome. reMarkable is just an eInk slab with a few features but is also extremely limited. It has a lot of marketing behind it and I'd still never buy one, especially at the price point they're asking. My Samsung Galaxy S6 Lite w/ stylus + OneNote can do more than a crappy reMarkable, plus SO much more (and in color).

[@DavidFilskov]

I used 3Com's (or was it Palm's?) "handwriting" recognition back then. Were they copying Apple?

[@AmigaLove]

Palm used their own thing called "Grafitti" which made you learn a very specific way of writing "their way". You either matched it's explicit way or it created errors. Rather than learn your handwriting, Palm made you learn theirs. It was a totally different way of going about the problem.

[@DavidFilskov]

Ah yes, that's right. It worked, though.

[@SensibleChuckle]

Graffiti didn't take anything to learn. It was just a one-stroke version of a regular letter. An A was an A minus the cross bar. I actually started writing more efficiently on paper using their "font" style. Just skimming the cheat sheet is all that you need. I actually had graffiti on my newton before they were the backbone UI to palm. I think I had them on my Tandy Zoomer too. I can't remember for sure on the Zoomer. Zoomer was actually out before the Newton. And it was a Japanese device (Panasonic? Casio?) that Tandy had the license to make and rebrand for the US market.

[@Shot97]

The "Admittedly high price" is something I feel requires more attention than simply stating it, and saying there was a "Smear campaign" against it is implying a collective effort to actively join forces to say that no matter how great the thing is, we're going to make sure this fails. Even the most spectacular failures will sell more than 200,000 if there's that kind of attention being paid to it, in this case it's probably more that nobody cared. To me Apple is and always was a mid to upper mid-tear quality being sold as if it were high tier to a very rabid/cultish userbase that believes that are high tear. If you can't even sell to that group, then there's obviously something wrong with the product that somehow even made Apple's own users fail to see its benefits. Now that right there, is worth a video, no joke that the Simpsons make is going to influence a cult of people determined to buy a brand, something more made them not pay attention. What line is crossed that finally makes the diehards say "no way!", that's what I'd be interested in knowing. As for the Newton itself and what I think of it in regards to what this video shows, I have no personal experience with it, I'm sure I saw a couple back in the day, and I remember the X-Files game actually using it as one of the main mechanics of the game. I remember the jokes, I've made some of my own, but it's no surprise to me to learn that it's "not garbage", I don't expect anything from Apple to be pure garbage and of course this video shows that it's not that, but nor is it something that justified its price... Which is something I would say for every single Apple product ever released. Why this failed when most Apple products did not, that simply cannot be blamed on the people who never used the product, who just mocked it, no... It's on Apple users and the company somehow failing to convince them that they needed it. Apple did not/does not need volume of sales to succeed with a product, they only need their own users to buy whatever they make. The comparisons with the reMarkable I will assume are correct, as I certainly have no interest in that either, and hey, if the Newton is cheaper than that (now) and has better handwriting recognition, eat up that new old stock if it serves a purpose. To me, ahead of its time or not, it was another black and white device from Apple, only this one wasn't from 1984 when it had no business being made, it's from 1993, and it's not being sold for the same price that a GameBoy, that's for sure. This to me, as a video, a little too much. I don't think I could have gotten through it if it was anyone else, because it feels so much like all the other hardware stuff you see on here. The same type of shots, let's show a monitor with an old commercial, along with fake interference so it looks like what we "think" a VCR should look like, the same type of script which is obviously being read in this strange manipulative combination of monotone but also faux emotion (A KZbin specialty), if the Newton was new I'd have to wonder if you were getting paid by Apple. -This is not meant to be taken angrily, it's more difficult than I can possible describe to write what I just wrote to someone I genuinely like and respect... What I do, will never be liked by most, but I will always have integrity, this type of video... Well, I'm actually surprised it didn't do better for you, because I feel this is the type of video that "should" get views on this site, the type of video that normally does I should say. I don't know, hopefully this only effects you if it's something you're wondering about yourself, because I'm going to tell you that there's nothing anybody could say about my videos at this point that I would give a ____ about. I hope you reach that point, I don't know what your goal is with the videos, and it's why I've never subscribed, I'm a very difficult person to get a sub from, and I can certainly say it was never earned by doing the same annoying pop ups of "subscribe" with a mouse pointer that then moves over to a bell with sound effects. If you're hoping to someday reach the likes of MVG/LGR, then disregard all of this, because you're doing it right. I'm only pondering this in a comment because there's nobody I'd like to subscribe to more than you... Buried underneath that script is passion for a device nobody else cares about, and I respect the ____ out of that, I really do.

[@SensibleChuckle]

I loved the Newton. Served me well for my work at work and freelance biz support at home for a few years. Til jobs killed it when he returned. Then I switched handspring and palm who soaked up those ex apple guys. I thought the video was good here, and I subscribed because he's also an Amiga guy I didn't know til now. I've considered the remarkable but it's not the modern newton I'm looking for, the plan stinks too. At least their money goes back into R&D and shows in the updates. The color model would serve me well but I think a tablet would be better for me. I don't get distracted by notifications so it's not solving that problem. I mean I still have a phone to notify me anyway. Folding keyboard added to my phone is probably my best solution.