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Now THIS is what I’m talking about. To me it could be the holy grail of Macintosh products. A portable tweener - bigger than a PDA and smaller than a laptop. You know - like the original Newton was.

Apple Inc, which helped spawn the PDA market with its Newton MessagePad line in the early ’90s, plans to give the concept another go with a modern day reincarnation of the old fan favorite based on the company’s new mutli-touch technology, AppleInsider has learned.

For Apple, the ongoing project represents its second stab at reinventing the PDA since the Newton met its fate in the late 90’s — the first of which never saw the light of day and is only known to have existed based on a one-off comment from chief executive Steve Jobs over three years ago.

The thing you have to love about Apple (or hate if you’re a competitor) is their ability to create a market where others have failed. No doubt if Steve Jobs was with the company back when the original Newton was under development, things would have been different for that device. It was a lesson learned for Palm who got it right with their Palm Pilot (and coincidentally have come full circle). Apple’s innovation with the original Powerbook design (that laptops today still use) and the iPod and iMac proves that this company has it’s finger on the style that people like as well as the interface that makes them not want to put it down to gather dust. If these reports are true, they’re doing their due diligence with the next gen Newton and it could be yet another landmark device.

It appears that Jobs and Co. never gave up hope, and instead returned to the drawing board. For the past 18 months, well-respected sources tell AppleInsider, a small team of Apple engineers have been at it again, this time tapping the company’s revolutionary multi-touch technology as a foundation.

During that time, sources have observed the project slip in and out of limbo, as Apple struggled to meet its self-imposed June, 2007 launch date for the iPhone. In at least two instances, the company pulled software engineers off the project to assist in the completion of the iPhone software, only to return those same engineers to the their original task months later.

With the initial iPhone now out the door and two successive models well underway in Apple’s labs, it’s believed to be full steam ahead for the modern day Newton project. Like iPhone and the iPod touch, the new device runs an embedded version of Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard operating system.

I just hope that if/when this thing is released, they don’t go with the same closed system as the iPhone. I need my third party apps. It’s not like OS X is an unstable and limited OS like Palm Garnett where third party app crashes can severly tarnish the user experience. It shouldn’t take users hacking the device to shoehorn their own apps in. This isn’t like the iPod where a one-size-fits-all approach works.

I’m hoping this thing will be running on an SSD hard drive with expansion via SD Slot available, Wi-Fi, iTunes, Safari, iSync and iCal and Address Book, and an ability to expand via USB to allow cell data adapters or whatever your heart desires. I mean - it will be running OS X, right?

Externally, the mutil-touch PDA has been described by sources as an ultra-thin “slate” akin to the iPhone, about 1.5 times the size and sporting an approximate 720×480 high-resolution display that comprises almost the entire surface of the unit. The device is further believed to leverage multi-touch concepts which have yet to gain widespread adoption in Apple’s existing multi-touch products — the iPhone and iPod touch — like drag-and-drop and copy-and-paste.

Artist rendition showing approximate size ratio to existing Apple handhelds | Artwork by audiopollution.

Imagine how many heads you’d turn watching movies on that thing!

More broadly characterized as Apple’s answer to the ultra-mobile PC, the next-gen device is believed to be tracking for a release sometime in the first half of 2008. Assuming the project remains clear of roadblocks, sources believe it could make an inaugural appearance during Jobs’ Macworld keynote in January alongside some new Mac offerings. Still, manufacturing ramp and availability would seem unlikely until closer to mid-year, those same sources say.

As AppleInsider has hinted in recent months (1, 2), the next-gen PDA will signal the advent of a fifth core business segment (fourth if you discount Apple TV) for Apple, but at the same time represent just smidgen of what’s to come from the company’s new multi-touch platform, which has already proven to be a game-changer.

And here’s the kicker. The UMPC and Tablet PC market has been such a nonstarter despite all the push from Intel and even Microsoft as well as many hardware makers. Of course the common thread for all of those devices is that they’ve been trying to run XP or Vista. Even the Nokia 770 seems to have been getting better ink. Here’s where I think Apple can make the biggest difference - give people a reason to want something in this form factor. The device landscape is much different now than it was back when the Newton came out. Now you have a collection of PSPs, UMPCs, OQOs, PDAs, and ultraportable laptops trying to fill the space.

The original Newton still enjoys a vibrant enthusiast support network and apps can sometimes even compare to other devices of today. The consensus is that Apple got it right with the features, but got it wrong with the form factor and the timing. I’ve always hoped that Apple had been working on a Newton 2, something deep in the bowels of 1 Infinite Loop and if this rumor is to be believed … January’s Macworld could yield something legendary.

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