Have we all forgotton? I DID! … I remember a time when my electronic planner was not connected to a cellular network. I remember a time when I had to carry only the data I needed, but I could use this bulky piece of equipment (with a touch screen) for taking notes, managing contacts, calculating, and running a few basic programs. What was it? It was a personal digital assistant! A PDA!

Palm, after being sold to the U.S. Robotics Corp in 1995 began manufacturing the Palm Pilot PDAs in 1996. I had one! Love it! Took it everywhere and wore it out!

So, the iPad is just a fancy new Palm Pilot? Not exactly…

Before Palm was sold to US Robotics, they produced the “Tandy Zoomer” in 1993! I didn’t own one of these myself (I was 9 years old) but it was one of the first to use the Graffiti handwriting recognition software and a touch small touch screen computing device.

But wait, there’s more! The Zoomer wasn’t the first PDA… It was (:::drum roll:::) APPLE!

The Apple Newton, developed in 1988 and released February of 1989, ran on the “Newton OS” which allowed users to take notes, view calendars, draw, calculate, store contacts, and it even recognized your handwriting! It also connected back to your apple computer to “sync”. They even had an entire line of Apple Newton PDAs called “MessagePad” (pictured)!

I am amazed that I didn’t figure this out sooner. Apple claims to be creating a new category, but they really aren’t. They are resurrecting an old category that they created 22 years ago!

In a mad dash to make everything more portable, mobile, and connected, Palm Pilots became much smaller, sleeker, and then connected to the cellular network! Then cell phones merged with “PDAs” and became smart phones! Instead of carrying around two devices, you only had to carry one. But you lost something, functionality! So, you only had to carry around

your phone (and you have everything on it), but most people still write or take notes in a journal or day planner and then try to enter all that data into their computer (that syncs with their PDA/Cellphone) later. This is a HUGE pet peeve and ANTI-time management! I hate writing things down twice! It waste so much time! Now, I enter anything once (on my computer, phone, or pda) and everything will sync together like magic!

Apple is seizing this opportunity and relaunching a forgotten category of device! The iPad is the new “MessagePad”! They could have called it the “iPDA” or “iNewton” (and if they start that now, I want royalties: 3%).