August 2, 1993: Apple launches the Newton MessagePad, the primary product in its line of handheld private digital assistants. Whereas it’ll grow to be essentially the most unfairly maligned product in Apple historical past, the Newton is a revolutionary system.
It predates Apple’s push towards app-based cell gadgets 14 years later. And, whereas typically dismissed as a failure, the Newton ranks close to the highest of the record of Apple’s most influential creations.
The Apple Newton: John Sculley’s Mac
The Newton was typically regarded, each internally and externally, as Apple CEO John Sculley‘s reply to Steve Jobs‘ Mac. The system marked Sculley’s first try and launch a game-changing new product line throughout his tenure as Apple’s chief govt.
“It was Sculley’s Macintosh,” Frank O’Mahoney, one of many Apple advertising managers who labored on the Newton, instructed me once I interviewed him for my e book The Apple Revolution. “It was Sculley’s alternative to do what Steve had accomplished, 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 110, the world’s first battery-powered transportable MS-DOS PC, whereas at Hewlett-Packard within the Nineteen Eighties.
He began the Apple skunkworks challenge that turned the Newton in 1987. Nevertheless, it grew unwieldy after Sakoman added to his want record all of the cutting-edge cell expertise exhibiting up in analysis labs on the time. These included a touch-sensitive display screen, handwriting recognition, a tough disk and a large battery. An infrared port would even enable the gadgets to speak with each other. (Keep in mind that each one of this was within the late Nineteen Eighties!)
Sakoman left Apple in 1990. In early 1991, Sculley noticed the idea. At that time, the Newton moved from a skunkworks challenge to full-speed-ahead improvement. This pivotal second in Apple historical past marked the corporate’s bold try and revolutionize private computing. One among advertising whiz Sculley‘s chief contributions? Developing with the phrase “private digital assistant” to explain what the Newton would truly 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 system garnered a good quantity of press.
Sadly, a few of this took the type of parodies of the Newton’s expertise. The Apple PDA’s handwriting-recognition software program took an particularly massive hit. (It acquired spoofed in a Doonesbury cartoon and on The Simpsons.)
Photograph: Doonesbury
In reality, the Apple Newton’s handwriting recognition truly labored impressively effectively. Take into account two of its most beautiful options (and once more, let me remind you this was three many years 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 system might be taught new phrases simply as iPhones do right now.
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” information 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 system 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 formidable $699 system that proved far forward of its time. The modern black look of the system was extra harking back to Apple’s later iPhones than the “Snow White” design language of the Macintosh line within the early ’90s.
In the end, three issues doomed the Newton: early adverse press, a scarcity of web connectivity (which might finally make smartphones “will need to have” objects), and Apple’s early Nineteen Nineties identification disaster. (The corporate’s merchandise proved too dear for informal patrons however too dangerous and underpowered for enterprise customers.)
The Newton turned a business failure — but it surely spawned most of the greatest successes Apple loved in later years.
Apple Newton will get higher over time
Though the Newton by no means wound up turning into an enormous hit for Apple, subsequent iterations of the system ironed out a whole lot of its early issues. By the point Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the remaining Newton — the MessagePad 2100 — had been launched, providing one of the best iteration of the product but.
By this level, Apple engineers had solved the early handwriting-recognition issues. The consequence was as helpful a pocket system as you may anticipate within the days earlier than ubiquitous cell 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 keep in mind the launch of the Apple Newton MessagePad? Did you personal one? Depart your feedback and recollections beneath.
