Apple Newton

In early August, Apple launched the Newton MessagePad - a £599 'Personal Digital Assistant' that marks its first major entry into the mass consumer market.

In May, 1992, Apple announced its intention to cooperate with Sharp on a highly-sophisticated computerised organiser and communicator dubbed the Newton. As it had done in 1984 with the Macintosh computer, Apple started from scratch and designed software and hardware for a hand-held device that would be years ahead of its rivals.

The device described would be able to recognise handwriting, both block letters and 'cursive' (joined up) writing - something no other manufacturer can yet manage economically- it would act as an electronic organiser, allow its users to send and receive faxes and electronic mail from wherever they were, and its built-in 'intelligence' would make all of this easy to use. Despite this technological sophistication it would weigh less than a pound, have a long battery life, and cost less than $1,000.

Within weeks, rivals began to announce development plans or reveal the existence of plans already underway. A year from now, Apple's Newton PDA (now dubbed the MessagePad), will be competing with broadly similar devices from AT&T, a Tandy/Casio joint project, a Microsoft/Compaq alliance and probably IBM as well as more conventional organisers and a profusion of attempts to shrink personal computers to fit in the palm of the hand.

For the next few months, however, the MessagePad is the best example of a new generation of personal organisers and communicators.

The standard screen you see on turning the MessagePad on is a familiar one - a blank page with lines across it to act as loose guides for your handwriting. As you begin to write, the MessagePad will attempt to translate your marks into words. Each word is checked against a dictionary, initially containing approximately 60,000 words - if it is not recognised, the MessagePad will pop up a list of likely substitutes, and if your word is not on that list, you can enter it using a tiny keyboard which pops up on screen. It does not work by recognising each character in turn - it uses the context as well as the form of a letter to decide what it could be. As a result, it will not recognise foreign languages, abbreviations or exotic terminology (support for German, French and other languages will follow early next year).

If you attempt to draw a straight line, circle or one of a variety of basic shapes, the MessagePad employs 'Symmetry Heuristics' - a fancy term for pattern recognition - to translate it to the nearest shape it can recognise - great for trying to draw maps or diagrams.

The way it handles drawing is one example of 'Newton Intelligence' - a key component of the built-in software that Apple is keen to emphasise. Certain phrases can be recognised as commands. As an example, if you write 'Call Bob Thursday noon' and tap the 'Assist' button at the bottom of the screen, the MessagePad will look up 'Bob' in your address book - if there's more than one Bob it will offer you a list. Then it will place a reminder in your calendar for the coming Thursday (which it assumes is likely to be the one you are interested in).

The MessagePad's communications functions work through the Notepad as well - if you wrote 'Fax to Bob' above a message, it would look up Bob's fax number - if you were plugged into a phone line at the time it would send him the fax automatically. If it sensed that you weren't plugged in, it would defer faxing until such time as you were. Printing documents and other communications functions which will follow, like paging, cellular modems, and electronic mail, work the same way.

Communications is the MessagePad's key weakness at present. From launch it will be able to send information to other Newtons via an infra-red link, and can connect to Apple Macintoshes via a cable. With an optional fax/modem, you will be able to use it to send faxes, provided you have access to a phone jack. But the software to connect to a PC isn't quite finished yet, it can't receive faxes, there's no wireless communications link and it can't exchange electronic mail yet because Apple hasn't yet set up the service it would use here in Europe.

This first device isn't likely to sell in large numbers but is an impressive demonstration of what can be done. Provided the early problems are dealt with and the price is dropped Apple and its partner, Sharp, stand a good chance of grabbing the lion's share of this new market..