Recently, we at AtAT had pretty much given up hope of ever seeing an Apple-branded handheld computer to replace the Newton; if you'll recall, earlier this year when the Newton project was canceled, Apple claimed they'd be re-entering the handheld market in 1999 with a new device running a version of the Mac OS. But consider the fact that 1999 starts in just a little over two months and every single Apple product roadmap we've ever seen since Newton's death indicates only four products-- consumer and professional versions of a desktop and a portable. Three of those four already exist, and the fourth, the consumer portable codenamed "P1" and due in 1999, while originally surmised to be the Newton replacement, looks more and more like an iMac-styled low-cost PowerBook every time new details about it slip through the cracks of Cupertino's silicon fence. Promises, promises.

And so it was that we were forced once again to consider getting a PalmPilot, despite that just about the only things we like about it are the size and the price. (We'd grab a remaindered or used Newton MessagePad 2100 in a heartbeat, but even after the whole project was scrapped, people remain fiercely loyal; prices for used units seem to hover in the $900 range!) And just about at the point where we were going to swear an oath to rely solely on a pad of paper and a pencil-- sometimes low-tech is really pretty cool, you know-- Mac OS Rumors dug up some interesting new insight that gives us new hope. According to their sources, Apple is indeed working on a handheld device separate from the P1, which will feature a Newton-style touch-screen interface but will run some version of the Mac OS. As we've long suspected, Apple reportedly plans to yank Newton's excellent "Rosetta" handwriting recognition engine (no jokes, now; if you've used a 2100, you know just how far things have come since that original MessagePad and "Eat Up Martha") and build it into the Mac OS, which explains why Apple never sold off the Newton technology.

We're thrilled to hear these rumors of a new handheld, and intrigued with the rather obvious idea of adding handwriting recognition to the Mac OS at large. Just imagine how cool it would be if you could enter text into your desktop Mac by scrawling some notes on a graphics tablet; Apple's already hinted at such possibilities in its Advanced Chinese Language Input Kit, or whatever that was called, which allowed Chinese handwriting recognition with a tablet. Sure, it's not a great idea to base our 1999 buying plans entirely on thin rumors and no hard facts, but hey, the iMac was kept so secret just about everybody was stunned when it was finally unveiled last May. What's to say that Apple can't pull that off a second time?