Newton, Reconsidered

techland.time.com

Skeuomorphism on mobile devices has come a long way:

Using a second unit, Steve Capps, one of Newton’s creators, showed how you could use it to order a pizza by moving topping icons onto a pie and then sending out a fax. In 1992, that was show-stopping stuff.

But instead of another Newton history article, this one is an interesting “hands-on assessment” of Apple’s first PDA. Almost 20 years after its release, Harry McCracken got himself a fully working MessagePad H1000 over eBay and tested it.

Would be interesting to know if the same could be done with an iPhone 4S or Galaxy Nexus in 2032. I doubt it.

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