Forget iOS 4.2, what you really want is Newton, Apple’s original handheld OS, running on your iPhone and iPad, right? Well, if you’re one of the many uber-passionate Newton faithful, you probably do and there’s a project underway to make it a reality.

Einstein is an open-source project to run (via emulation) the Newton OS on modern hardware. It was written and released by Paul Guyot several years ago. It’s quite an amazing piece of work.

The project got a shot in the arm earlier this month when Matthias Melcher got it up and running on iOS and posted a video of himself running it on his iPhone. Being a Newton fan since my original MessagePad in 1993, it was quite a sight to see.

Matthias mentioned he didn’t have an iPad yet, so I grabbed the source and built it for my iPad so I could take a little movie and share

Right now it’s slow and required a Newton ROM that can’t be legally distributed outside Apple, but there’s seldom a obstacle smart, dedicated developers can’t hurdle to get cool stuff done.

If you’ve wanted your Newton to live on beyond the original hardware, check out the video after the break.

[Steven Frank/Panic, TUAW]

snes4iPhone, the Super Nintendo emulator for Jailbreak, was captured running on an iPad — using a Wii remote to control your character.  Most people familiar to jailbreaking and running snes4iPhone already know how awesome it is to be able to carry your old favorites around on your iPhone.  Who doesn’t love Mario and old school Nintendo games? Better yet, who wouldn’t want it on their iPad?! Being able to do it on your iPad is even more awesome!  Of course, this is only for jailbroken users.

So if you’re interested in jailbreaking, jump over to our jailbreak forums or check out our new Spirit tutorial to get your jailbreak up and running.  Spirit currently works with any iPhone or iPod touch running 3.1.3 and any iPad running 3.2.  Even if you don’t have an iPad, sns4iPhone [$5.99 - Cydia link] is still a great buy for the iPhone as well.

And the normal disclaimer, if the thought of the jailbreak process frightens you, you may want to pass on this one.  Video after the break!

[via Touch Arcade]

YouTube link

It’s no secret many iPhone users switched over from PalmOS Treo devices (yours truly included!) and now StyleTap has brought a way for you to run all your old PalmOS apps on your Jailbroken iPhone. Says Engadget:

you’ll be able to run Palm OS applications (compatible up to version 5.2), with support for native ARM apps, Audio recording and playback, virtual memory cards, and TCP/IP connectivity, amongst other features.

It was announced back in June of 2008, but better late than never, right? The cost is a not-so-insignificant $49.99 and will only work for as long as you keep your iPhone jailbroken (which means no iPhone 4.0 for you for a while at least!) but if there’s just something you gotta blast from your PalmOS past, check it out.

Unofficial emulators and Apple are not a good mix, so when we heard from Gizmodo that Sega is planning on releasing an official emulator, all of us here at TiPb cheered with joy.

Sometime in February you can expect to see the emulator application packaged with Space Harrier II free of charge. Then, with the use of Apple’s in-app purchasing, you will be able to add the following titles.

• Sonic the Hedgehog: $5.99
• Golden Axe: $4.99
• Ecco the Dolphin: $2.99
• Shining Force: $2.99

So what do you gamers out there think about this setup? Let us know in the comments below!

[Via Gizmodo]

As of this writing, while the C64 emulator app still shows up in the iTunes App Store, attempting to buy it results in the above error message:

The item you tried to buy is no longer available

The availability of the item changed while you were using the store. The same item may be available with a different price or elsewhere on the store.

Whether this is just a glitch in the system, or a result of Apple pulling the app due to the BASIC interpreter still being accessible via a workaround (which would likely be a violation of the SDK license agreement), is unknown. If the latter, hopefully the developer can update and return the app to the store ASAP. Given how fast Apple has been processing Facebook updates lately, it shouldn’t take long to get a revision up, right?

[Thanks to @clayrussell for the head's up!]

C64 ($4.99 – iTunes link], a Commodore 64 emulator for the iPhone (and iPod touch) is now available from the App Store, despite having been previously rejected by Apple. FCC spotlight? Phil Schiller intervention? Simple change of heart? Sounds more like a slight change of code, says the C64 blog:

Ultimately, BASIC has been removed for this release; however, we hope that working with Apple further will allow us to re-enable it.

(If you’re dying to get your BASIC on, however, reader Stooovie let us know you can still access it by enabling “always show full keyboard”, starting a game, paging over to the EXTRA keyboard, and then tapping RESET. Boom, dropped into BASIC with a ready-prompt — though we clearly don’t remember enough C64 BASIC to see if it actually does anything or just sits there blinking. Commenters?)

But, as they say, who cares about BASIC, C64′s focus is games and it ships with Dragons Den, Le Mans, Jupiter Lander, Arctic Shipwreck and Jack Attack. More games will be available in the future (via in-app purchase, we believe).

The interface is gorgeous, the passion level obviously high, and the C64 is a classic (as is the Amiga, cough, want-it-next, cough), so for fans of any of those qualities — or more likely all of them — check it out and let us know what you think.

Demo video and more screen shots after the break!

[Thanks Stooovie for the tip!]

Zodttd (via Gizmodo) whets our appetites for iPhone 3GS jailbreaks to come:

I now have psx4iphone running very speedy on the 3GS. It’s at the point where Final Fantasy 7 is fullspeed at very least without sound. The build is rough around the edges, as you can’t switch games without restarting the emulator, and only memory card saves are currently working, no save states just yet. Both these issues are being worked on.

For those not into the jailbreak scene, that also whets our appetite for higher-end gaming to come as well…

Despite a brief mention in our forums and I believe some chatting during a podcast episode (though the exact one I can’t recall), we haven’t discussed the StyleTap emulator much here at TiPb. Here’s what it is: an emulator for the PalmOS that allows you to run their tens of thousands of apps on the iPhone or the iPod Touch. Back in February, StyleTap had created a version of it that they successfully demo’ed on a Jailbroken iPod Touch. Now we hear word that they really and truly intend to release it to the world as an official iPhone app.

Don’t laugh – there are truly a ton of Palm apps out there — many of which fall into really cool niche categories that are unlikely to be duplicated anytime soon as native iPhone apps. Stuff like Mobile Gadgeteer Matt Miller’s personal fave, a Tide Tool app that lets you check the status of the ocean tides around the world.

Thanks to Cherryhead25 for the tip!