Apple’s Newton handheld pc was each the corporate’s largest failure and its biggest peek into the longer term. Greater than thirty years after its launch, AppleInsider reminisces about what Newton was, what it meant, and the place it went flawed.
Again in 1993, Apple’s press officers did the rounds of each expertise journal there was. Once they reached one in London, that they had the speech down pat. Particularly, they knew tips on how to fend off criticisms by asking questions first.
“What do you suppose it ought to have subsequent?” they requested, subtly telling us extra variations had been coming and buttering up our egos. “Backlighting or coloration?” With out exception, the ten or so journalists in that workplace all mentioned “backlighting” in unison.
It wasn’t a foul alternative. Newton by no means would get coloration nevertheless it did get backlighting with the MessagePad 130 in 1996.
On reflection, although, the reply to “what does it want subsequent” was much more sophisticated than a easy alternative between two options. By the point we had been being requested that, the gadget was already heading to failure as a result of it was competing in opposition to everybody’s inflated expectations for it. Newton was introduced up to now forward of being shipped and it was hyped a lot that by the point it got here, it was inevitably a disappointment.
That lengthy delay additionally meant that rivals may at the least begin making rivals. But actually the most important rival to Newton had begun earlier than the announcement. It is simply that it had been begun by Apple. At precisely the identical time Apple was making Newton, its spin-off firm Basic Magic was making an attempt to make an identical gadget.
It is uncommon for a corporation to foresee the place the longer term goes however Apple did it within the Nineteen Nineties — and sadly did it twice on the identical time. These had been two separate Apple-backed gadgets that eerily predicted the world we stay in right now. They usually each failed.
To grasp the place Newton went flawed, it is advisable see what it was making an attempt to realize earlier than all the hype and it is advisable return additional to the mid-Nineteen Eighties.
Who considered Newton?
In 1985, Jean-Louis Gasse wrote that “in 5 years or much less, computer systems will in all probability be able to recognizing handwriting.”
As we speak, Gassee is a businessman turned author who was lengthy finest identified for an insightful and witty expertise weblog however in 1985 he was Apple’s senior vice chairman of analysis and growth.
In his 2023 biography, “Grateful Geek,” Gassee says it was when disaffected Apple engineer Steve Sakoman wished to stop in 1987, that Newton started. Sakoman wished to flee Apple’s politics, return to product creation, and work on his thought for a tool with handwriting recognition.
“I ought to have given him a pep discuss and identified that Apple was in nice form with many attention-grabbing initiatives forward,” wrote Gassee. “With out considering, I requested if he wanted a CEO.”
They compromised. Sakoman agreed to stick with Apple and make this gadget provided that his work can be saved freed from interference.
Gassee set him up in a constructing on Bubb Highway, about ten minutes away from 1 Infinite Loop, and didn’t report back to the Board what he was doing.
Apple’s related buildings in Cupertino, California. By way of Apple Maps. In pink left to proper: Bubb Highway, 1 Infinite Loop and right now’s Apple Park.
Sakoman wasn’t working alone, although. By this level he’d persuaded Steve Capps, co-writer of the Mac’s Finder, to return to Apple particularly for this venture. What they and their group had been doing was particularly to take a look at making a pen-based cellular computing gadget. By late 1987 Sakoman had named it Newton, after the unique complicated pen-and-ink Apple emblem.
Additionally by this level, their plans or at the least hopes had been properly developed. Newton was to be a handheld pc and communicator that offered for $2,495. That is what the unique Mac price so it did not appear unreasonable. In right now’s cash, although, it is round $7,000, which does.
That value right now would purchase you two of the bottom Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional. Or it might have been, however the deliberate Newton did not keep that value for very lengthy.
It did not keep handheld, both: by 1989 Newton was as an alternative on its approach to being a pill measuring 8.5 by 11 inches, codenamed Figaro, and possibly attributable to price between $6,000 and $8,000. In 2025, that is $15,600 to $20,800 — or practically six of the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional.
It is not clear how lengthy Gassee actually did preserve this venture secret from the remainder of Apple, however by 1990, the corporate’s Board positively knew about it. By then, although, there did not appear such a must preserve it secret with a view to forestall any interference.
That is as a result of Newton’s huge supporter Gassee had first taken over worldwide product advertising and shortly after was additionally named President of Apple Merchandise.
Nonetheless, early in that very same 12 months, Gassee disagreed with John Sculley who wished to licence the Mac working system to different pc producers.
Invoice Atkinson (proper, with Steve Jobs) was essential to the creation of the Newton MessagePad — Picture credit score: Apple
Their distinction of opinion and Sculley’s place meant that Gassee had a strong title, however he was sidelined. It was a transparent and vital sufficient change in Gassee’s place that he shortly introduced that he would resign.
It was all simply extra inside Apple politics and this time, particularly due to how Gassee was being handled, Sakoman lastly did stop Apple on on March 2, 1990.
That would’ve been the top of Newton aside from Invoice Atkinson. That is the person who was principally chargeable for the Apple Lisa’s graphical interface which then turned the Mac’s.
Atkinson invited Steve Capps plus Apple legends Andy Hertzfeld, Susan Kare, and Marc Porat to his dwelling for a gathering on March 11, 1990. It was to debate a manner of preserving Newton going and, considerably, he additionally invited John Sculley.
Regardless of implying in his e book that he championed the thought of a Information Navigator, he did not perceive the Newton when it was pitched to him.
Three years earlier than in his now out of print e book “Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple,” Scullley enthused about what he referred to as the Information Navigator. “People may use it drive by means of libraries, museums, databases or institutional archives by means of numerous home windows and menus opening galleries, stacks and extra,” he wrote.
Sculley went a bit loopy for this concept, having Apple produce promotional movies for it. But at that first assembly in Atkinson’s dwelling, reportedly he simply did not get it.
He did, although, ask for one thing that he may present the Board at their subsequent assembly. If solely by that request, Sculley obtained Newton going once more.
Excluding Steve Sakoman’s departure, the Newton group then started to return to regular. The Board accredited the thought, Sculley gave Newton his official and full backing, after which he appointed Larry Tesler to run it in Could 1990. There have been simply two issues he mandated: Newton should go on sale on April 2, 1992 and it should price $1,500 ($3,450 right now).
That is the place it will get odd
Marc Porat, who was at Atkinson’s March assembly, had been concerned since a 12 months earlier than with a separate venture to do with making partnerships with Apple and firms i the communications and client industries.
In Could 1990, he and others persuaded John Sculley to spin off that venture into the separate Basic Magic. Working for Basic Magic from the beginning had been Porat, Invoice Atkinson and Andy Hertzfield. Sooner or later shortly after they had been joined by Susan Kare.
So except John Sculley and Steve Capps, each one that’d been at Atkinson’s March 1990 assembly in regards to the Newton was now with Basic Magic.
It is a matter of document that Basic Magic had the type of tight safety and secrecy that we now affiliate with Apple. A 2018 documentary in regards to the firm even reveals a few of the methods it applied as whole a blackout of stories because it may.
But even when Apple did the identical factor with Newton, so lots of the Basic Magic individuals had been ex-Newton that it isn’t bodily potential that they did not find out about their rival. These two corporations aimed for a similar aim of a handheld communicator that might revolutionize the world in just about the identical methods and Newton introduced first.
“John Sculley gave a keynote handle on the Client Electronics Present the place he introduced what we had been doing,” Andy Hertzfield says within the Basic Magic documentary. “Besides he introduced it as one thing Apple was doing. We thought Apple wasn’t doing it and we heard about it from that speech. We felt utterly betrayed.”
“I assumed they’d co-exist. So I wasn’t actually involved that Newton would harm Basic Magic. I used to be getting intense strain from the Apple board and the Apple administration group as to why I used to be spending a lot time on Basic Magic (when) Apple was creating in parallel a enterprise that it owned 100% of referred to as Newton,” mentioned Sculley. “And that appeared like they may ship a product.”
It could have appeared prefer it, nevertheless it wasn’t true.
When Sculley launched the Newton on Could 29, 1993, it did not work. Actually. The primary prototype demonstrated on stage would not swap on. Thankfully the second did. Even so, Sculley mustn’t have caved in to strain to announce it but.
In the end, the Newton would not really ship for an additional 14 months. It got here out on August 2, 1993.
Its preliminary gross sales had been good, for the time, with a reported 50,000 Newton MessagePads offered by the top of November 1993. Nonetheless, whether or not by means of promotions or reductions, these had been offered at $900 or $2,000 in right now’s cash, far under Sculley’s mandated determine.
The mannequin proven to us in London was nowhere close to as quick as utilizing an iPhone right now to make notes. Nonetheless, it was quicker than getting out your PowerBook was and the thought of getting your calendar and emails with you on a regular basis was compelling.
It simply wasn’t the magical gadget we would all been led to count on. When the handwriting recognition wasn’t good — and it usually wasn’t — it obtained mocked.
That recognition did enhance and the machine did get quicker and it did finally get a backlight.
The tip of the present
Newton subsequently went by means of eight variations of the {hardware}, and lots of revisions of its software program largely distributed on 3.5-inch floppy disk earlier than Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 and killed the venture.
It did not really get discontinued till 1998 and there have been makes an attempt by different corporations to purchase the expertise however none labored out. To this present day there are individuals utilizing Newton MessagePads, however even that trustworthy crowd is getting just a little sparse now.
John Sculley was finally the rationale Newton got here to market, and maybe it is due to acrimonious disagreements that Jobs killed it off. But it was additionally Sculley who bizarrely created Newton’s most severe rival and it was he who determined to announce it greater than a 12 months earlier than it might be made able to ship.
“The Newton in 1998 appears remarkably unchanged from the Newton in 1993,” wrote Sculley in what should certainly be deadpan humor, “(with) the exception that the handwriting now works and the display screen is readable.”
If he’d let the designers get that proper earlier than saying it, Newton would possibly properly have revolutionized the world. In an alternate actuality, Newton may have been such successful.
Which is what the writers of Apple TV+ hit “For All Mankind” suppose, too. That drama, which posits an alternate actuality to our personal, has characters utilizing what’s really a Newton MessagePad 120 with an iPhone 12 hidden inside it.
Even in our personal actuality, even with two AppleInsider staffers who had been adults each when it shipped and was killed, simply wanting again on the historical past of the Newton, nonetheless we will see a lot of what made the iPhone well-liked so a few years later.
