The Newton is back in the spotlight, and once again, is creating waves in the Apple community.
The Newton 2010 bug has made news before, but just re-surfaced on a prominent Apple blog. Here’s TUAW:
Apple’s ill-fated and technologically advanced personal digital assistant was hot stuff in the 1990s until it was axed in February of 1998. There are still a good number of Newton MessagePad fans who not only use their devices every day, but are also working together on hardware and software updates to their units to bring them into the 21st Century.The Newtapocalypse occurs next year at 6:48:31 PM on January 5th, 2010. While a majority of the functions of the MessagePad are not affected by the impending doom, calendar functions are.
It seems that TUAW didn’t do all the required fact-checking. Here’s a response posted on the Newton Poetry blog:
It’s too bad TUAW’s Steven Sande jumped the gun, because - as of a few weeks ago - Eckhart Köppen released a patch fixing the Y2010 bug. A quick browse through the Newtontalk list or, shucks, even this modest blog, would’ve brought Köppen’s patch to light.Sande later fixed his oversight, but attempted to cover his tracks by making fun of Newton users.“Frankly, considering the caveats listed on the update page, I think it would be a much better idea just to get an iPhone, guys!” he wrote.Frankly, Steve, we’re doing just fine, thankyouverymuch – even if we don’t qualify as “mainstream consumers.”
Ouch.
