Last week Apple announced that it was no longer going to be enhancing the Newton OS or its associated hardware products, the Newton Message Pad and the Emate. I was planning on providing all the links to related articles on this, but it became too much.
There was five or so articles in the first day (basic rewrites of the original Apple announcement).
The next day there were nearly a dozen articles analysing why Apple had done this (the consensus was reached about the following: cost cutting; the Newton was never profitable; and developing the Newton's operating system in addition to the Mac operation system and Rhapsody operating system was very expensive, as well as draining on limited resources. There was also the occasional reference to large employee defections to the Palm Pilot development team, leaving the Newton Division down (important) personnel. And then there was the feelings of basically what a good idea it was to cut development).
After that, every owner of a Newton and a home page wrote an article on it (those that didn't have a home page wrote e-mails to editors of popular Mac sites) waxing lyrical about how stupid it was to kill of the Newton without a Mac OS-based replacement ready to go now (something I couldn't agree more with).
The aftermath off Apple killing off the Newton is that Apple will continue to sell off stockpiled Newtons (maybe making more for large enough orders) and next year ("early next year," I think the statement went), Apple will aim a new Mac OS-based product at the market currently served by the Emate.
From rumors around the industry, this new product will use "Allegro Lite," a cut-down version of the next update to the Mac OS. Allegro programming is still in the Alpha stage, which probably accounts for the delay before releasing the new product.
In all the fuss about the death of the Newton platform, the last rites of one of Apple's other platforms were quietly performed. With the reabsorption of Bandai Digital Entertainment by its parent company Bandai Co Ltd., the Pippin (a game console with Internet capabilities and CD-Rom games that are usable on the Macintosh platform), originally developed by Apple, was sold to Bandai Digital Entertainment, a company set up by Bandi Co Ltd. to market the Pippin and games for use on it.
Long live the Macintosh! It seems that's all Apple has left.
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