August 2, 1993: Apple launches the Newton MessagePad, the primary product in its line of handheld private digital assistants. Whereas it can turn out to be probably the most unfairly maligned product in Apple historical past, the Newton is a revolutionary gadget.
It predates Apple’s push towards app-based cellular gadgets 14 years later. And, whereas usually dismissed as a failure, the Newton ranks close to the highest of the listing of Apple’s most influential creations.
The Apple Newton: John Sculley’s Mac
The Newton was usually regarded, each internally and externally, as Apple CEO John Sculley‘s reply to Steve Jobs‘ Mac. The gadget marked Sculley’s first try and launch a game-changing new product line throughout his tenure as Apple’s chief government.
“It was Sculley’s Macintosh,” Frank O’Mahoney, one of many Apple advertising and marketing managers who labored on the Newton, advised me after I interviewed him for my e book The Apple Revolution. “It was Sculley’s alternative to do what Steve had completed, however in his personal class of product.”
The Newton was the brainchild of Apple engineer Steve Sakoman. Passionately devoted to handheld computing, Sakoman beforehand constructed the HP 110the world’s first battery-powered moveable MS-DOS PC, whereas at Hewlett-Packard within the Eighties.
He began the Apple skunkworks venture that grew to become the Newton in 1987. Nonetheless, it grew unwieldy after Sakoman added to his want listing all of the cutting-edge cellular know-how exhibiting up in analysis labs on the time. These included a touch-sensitive display, handwriting recognition, a tough disk and a large battery. An infrared port would even permit the gadgets to speak with each other. (Keep in mind that every one of this was within the late Eighties!)
Sakoman left Apple in 1990. In early 1991, Sculley noticed the idea. At that time, the Newton moved from a skunkworks venture to full-speed-ahead growth. This pivotal second in Apple historical past marked the corporate’s bold try and revolutionize private computing. One among advertising and marketing whiz Sculley‘s chief contributions? Developing with the phrase “private digital assistant” to explain what the Newton would really do for patrons.
The launch of the Newton MessagePad
The Newton MessagePad launch on today on the 1993 Macworld Expo proved comparatively low-key in comparison with the 1984 debut of the Macintosh. Nonetheless, Apple’s new handheld gadget garnered a good quantity of press.
Sadly, a few of this took the type of parodies of the Newton’s know-how. The Apple PDA’s handwriting-recognition software program took an particularly massive hit. (It bought spoofed in a Doonesbury cartoon and on The Simpsons.)
This Doonesbury cartoon nailed the Newton’s iffy handwriting recognition.
Photograph: Doonesbury
In truth, the Apple Newton’s handwriting recognition really labored impressively properly. Think about two of its most beautiful options (and once more, let me remind you this was three a long time in the past!).
First, the Newton might acknowledge cursive handwriting in addition to printed letters. Second, whereas the Newton MessagePad launched with a library of 10,000 phrases it might acknowledge out of the field, the gadget might study new phrases simply as iPhones do immediately.
That wasn’t the one little bit of synthetic intelligence that Apple constructed into the MessagePad, both. The PDA additionally confirmed contextual consciousness of what an individual was writing. As an example, scribbling in “Meet Killian Bell for lunch on Wednesday” would create an entry within the MessagePad’s calendar app on the applicable time.
Talking of apps, the first-gen MessagePad included a notepad, an appointment e book and an handle e book. Impressively, it additionally included Sakoman’s infrared transmitter, letting customers “beam” knowledge to and from different Newtons or — in a considerably un-Apple transfer — to rival Sharp Wizard digital organizers. Add-on {hardware} included reminiscence playing cards, battery packs, energy adapters and an exterior fax modem that linked the gadget to Macs or Home windows PCs.
The Newton MessagePad: Forward of its time
In all, the Newton MessagePad launched on today in 1993 was a powerful $699 gadget that proved far forward of its time. The smooth black look of the gadget was extra harking back to Apple’s later iPhones than the “Snow White” design language of the Macintosh line within the early ’90s.
Finally, three issues doomed the Newton: early unfavourable press, an absence of web connectivity (which might ultimately make smartphones “will need to have” objects), and Apple’s early Nineties id disaster. (The corporate’s merchandise proved too expensive for informal patrons however too dangerous and underpowered for enterprise customers.)
The Newton grew to become a business failure — but it surely spawned lots of the largest successes Apple loved in later years.
Apple Newton will get higher over time
Though the Newton by no means wound up turning into a giant hit for Apple, subsequent iterations of the gadget ironed out a variety of its early issues. By the point Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the ultimate Newton — the MessagePad 2100 — had been launched, providing the very best iteration of the product but.
By this level, Apple engineers had solved the early handwriting-recognition issues. The end result was as helpful a pocket gadget as you might count on within the days earlier than ubiquitous cellular web. However, Jobs canceled the product line. He selected to focus Apple’s consideration on blockbuster merchandise just like the iMac, the iBook and the iPod.
Do you bear in mind the launch of the Apple Newton MessagePad? Did you personal one? Go away your feedback and recollections beneath.
