NYTimes: Apple's Chief in the Risky Land of the Handhelds

I think an iPhone would be great. I agree that PDAs are going to go away, that phones with PDA functionality will take over. But I disagree with their statement that "the Newton's single biggest shortcoming [was] the device's inability to communicate easily with the Macintosh desktop computer"

I bought the original Newton MessagePad, and it came with the Newton Connection Kit 1.0. It was just great, just as functional as Palm Desktop is today. It even let you look at ink drawings from the Newton.

Unfortunately, when Apple shipped Newton OS 2.0 and the Newton 2000 / eMate 300, their new Newton Connection Utility was total crap. It had 1/10the of the functionality of 1.0. So they never had a complete picture -- crappy handheld, great software, great handheld, crappy software.