Fun_People Archive
12 Apr
A new family of PAAs

Date: Tue, 12 Apr 94 15:46:57 PDT
To: Fun_People
Subject: A new family of PAAs

[Every few years a product of this sort is announced, and each time it seems
even more appropriate than the last... -psl]

Forwarded-by: <a-lisat@microsoft.com>
[forwards erased]

The Newton PaperPad is the first in a family of revolutionary communications
assistants from Apple. Apples PR representative, Harold Jones comments:

"Given the failing of the PaperPad's predecessor, the MessagePad, we wanted to
find out what people wanted that wasn't offered by the MessagePad. The
overwhelming reponse was price - the MessagePad was too expensive. Cost
effectiveness was therefore the primary goal in the new family of Newton
hardware."

Combining user-based wetware technologies with primarily low-cost
carbon-based materials, the Newton PaperPad helps you stay in touch
with friends and collegues, organise your life, and keep track of your
ideas. You can take notes. Make a quick sketch. A significant
advancement made was the employment of a stylus prototype developed by
Apple's research laboratories which eliminates the need to print
letters out - they are printed out as soon as you write them.

"A major complaint from users was the fact that to actually have a
hard copy of anything when using the MessagePad required having to
print them out. And that of course required a printer which wasn't
always accessable. The PaperPad avoids all that by encorporating
Apple's new ApplePrint technologies directly into the PaperPad."

The sheer power of this approach was shown graphically at a demonstration at
the PaperPad's debut at this year's MacWorld expo:

"Crowds cheered and whooped as the Apple demonstrator scribbled something down
on the PaperPad. 'Want a hard copy?' the demonstrator said, 'Simply rip it
off!' and ripped out the page that had just been scribbled on. Gasps of awe
came from the crowd before their very eyes they saw, with no printer in sight,
a hard copy come directly from the PaperPad itself. We were flooded with
inquiries about shipping dates and order quantities. It was an amazing sight."

As easy to use as pencil and paper, the Newton PaperPad instantly recognises
your handwriting as handwriting and enables you to erase completely arbitrary
sections of text with the eraser portion of the accompanying stylus.

"We're not talking second-rate emulation here," says Harold, "we're talking
100% real thing. PDAs have proven again and again as being expensive and
ineffective. We solved this problem - the PaperPad is a _real_ paper pad.
This new generation of PAAs (Personal Analogue Assistants) should
revolutionise how people work and use their time.

The Newton PaperPad comes with built-in applications that include a notepad,
to-do list, datebook and address book. When you're ready, you can customise
your Newton PaperPad to include Apple and third party additions as well using
a peripheral co-developed by Apple and Croxley called the PaperClip. This
means that any new additions developed employing underlying PaperClip
technologies are automatically compatible with the Newton PaperPad.

Considering the Newton PaperPad offers 95% of the MessagePad's features for
around 1/100th the price, Apple officials are optimistic that Apple's market
share in over the next quarter following the release of the PaperPad should
increase markedly.
Fun_People Archive 12 AprA new family of PAAs

Fun_People Archive
12 Apr
A new family of PAAs
