Of course, for those of here on Earth that's not really news. What's more, the usually reliably scoop-driven Mr. M. doesn't even have a buried revelation in the piece like he normally does.
Instead, it seems that Markoff wanted to remind people of Apple's last experiment in touch-centric interface design, the Newton. It was, of course, a bust. Even Markoff, however, concedes that the comparison is largely irrelevant.
Nevertheless, as a blast from the past here are two favorite images from the Newton days. Above right is a screenshot from a classic The Simpsons episode where "Beat up Martin" wrongly became "Eat up Martha" and below you'll see a Doonesbury strip lampooning its pure character recognition.
