The years-long rumors finally came true: today, Apple laid the Newton's troubled spirit to rest. According to an Apple press release, as of today they will cease all development of the Newton OS and the products that use it (including the MessagePad and the eMate). And even though we at AtAT saw it coming, somehow we were still shocked and saddened when it finally happened. (This reaction was not dissimilar to the one we had when one of our favorite characters got killed off on the last episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)

Apple's stated reason for the decision is its commitment to concentrate all of its software development resources on "extending the Macintosh operating system." Reactions are varied and sundry, ranging from MacAddict's "so what?" to Don Crabb's "the decision... is strategically flawed in the extreme." Most people are agreeing on two points, though: first, it's unfortunate that Newton has been killed now, when it's finally reached a truly useable point in its existence, with both the fast and powerful MessagePad 2100 and the cool and kidproof eMate 300; second, killing the eMate may seriously undermine Apple's straining credibility in the K-12 educational market. Apple plans to return to the handheld space next year with Mac OS-based eMates. That's all well and good, but Newton developers just had their necks stepped on, and a year is a heckuva long time to leave a market and expect to jump back in.

Personally, we at AtAT feel that Apple's stated reason is at least 70% smoke-- after all, if they're concentrating all resources entirely on extending the Mac OS, how could they still be working on Rhapsody? (Unless... Naw.) More than likely, Newton simply wasn't making Apple any money, so out it goes. And while it may possibly have been a good "business decision," we can't help but feel a profound sadness both at the loss of Newton, and at the loss of the Apple who could work on cool technologies even if they weren't immediately profitable. Bummer. It's always sad when a longtime cast member leaves the show...

The Great Reality / Kaledoscope War of 1998 was short but explosive. After Reality published screenshots from a leaked beta version of Kaleidoscope 2.0, the K team cut many of its beta testers and severed ties with Reality and MacNN. Some of the beta testers fired a volley on Reality by emailing MacNN sponsors in a slander campaign, which prompted Reality to shut its doors. Reality had posted a farewell note which gave their side of the story, but that has since been removed.

Today, Greg Landweber (the Kaleidoscope programmer) posted his version of events, though it may be gone by the time you read this. To make a long story short, everything was essentially a big misunderstanding, with frayed nerves and overreactions on both sides. MacNN is reporting that a cease-fire has been reached between both parties, and that Reality removing its farewell note was part of that treaty. We assume that there was probably significant backlash from that note, when Reality readers spammed Greg for allegedly causing the shutdown of their favorite site. (Note that even though the farewell notice is gone, Reality is still closed for business.)

We're glad to see the end of this issue; it's one thing when large bureaucratic corporations engage in soap-opera-worthy behavior, but we find it all much less entertaining when it involves cool shareware developers and members of the Mac web community. By the way, AtAT is a fan of Kaleidoscope (though we've had to disable it since it was making our primary system crash every ten minutes once we upgraded to Mac OS 8.1), and we managed to see those screenshots before they got pulled. The only phrase that comes to mind is "absolutely gorgeous." We're looking forward to its release.

Something wicked this way comes-- or if not wicked, at least horribly misshapen and deformed. No, we're not making an oblique reference to any high-placed political figures (at least not consciously), but rather to the long-awaited low-cost G3-based home Mac known as Artemis. Artemis has a couple of problems. The first is simply that it doesn't exist yet; at a time when a sizeable percentage of computers sold cost less than $1000, Apple doesn't have a comparably-priced model. Unless you count the $799 eMate, which, of course, becomes essentially moot after today anyway.

It's the second problem, however, which is the more interesting; Artemis seems doomed to be one ugly puppy. You may recall descriptions of the prototype all-in-one case, when the first units were seeded to testers last November or so. A Mac OS Rumors source described the case as having "big ugly humps on its back" and "a face that could scare children." Soon after, Reality mentioned that the design was reminiscent of "one of the pink bug-eyed things you kill in Super Mario Brothers 2." And Apple received so much negative feedback from its testers that they wisely went back to the drawing board.

We had heard that subsequent designs (which were not all-in-one cases, but rather 6500-esque tower cases) were significantly improved. Today, however, Mac the Knife reveals that the curse of Artemis continues... According to the edged implement, the latest design has reverted to an all-on-one paradigm, but now resembles "nothing so much as a giant tooth perforated with quarter-inch holes." (Of course, you should ascribe to this report only as much trust as you as you have in the Knife's sense of taste.)

It sure would be a shame if Apple finally released a super-fast, low-cost machine and the average consumer wouldn't buy it because it was butt-ugly-- especially given Apple's history with attractive and functional industrial design. We find this continuing curse of unsightly design more than a little out of place, now that Steve Jobs is calling the shots. After all, we still feel that one of the sleekest and most beautiful computers ever made was his black NeXT cube. But then again, his latest decision to discontinue the eMate renders his sense of taste immediately suspect. At this point it's only a matter of time before he's spotted wearing white shoes and plaid polyester golf pants.