Apple Discontinued the Newton 25 Years Ago Today

[MacRumors]

Apple discontinued the Newton personal digital assistant (PDA) 25 years ago today via press release, marking the start of the company's renewed focus on the Mac.

The Newton came with a stylus, ran Newton OS, and was the first PDA to offer handwriting recognition. The device could be used to take notes, store contacts, manage calendars, send faxes, and more. In some ways, it was a precursor to other handheld Apple products like the iPhone and iPad, with its second-generation model even being the first major device from the company designed by Sir Jony Ive.

• Apple's Biggest Hardware Flops of All Time

Apple started developing the Newton in 1987 and shipped the first devices in August 1993, spending $100 million on its development. Production officially came to an end on February 27, 1998. Steve Jobs decided to discontinue the Newton less than a year after he returned to the company in 1997. The original press release announcing the device's discontinuation reads:

Apple Computer, Inc. today announced it will discontinue further development of the Newton operating system and Newton OS-based products, including the MessagePad 2100 and eMate 300.

"This decision is consistent with our strategy to focus all of our software development resources on extending the Macintosh operating system," said Steve Jobs, Apple's interim CEO. "To realize our ambitious plans we must focus all of our efforts in one direction."

Apple is committed to affordable mobile computing, pioneered by the eMate, and will be serving this market with Mac OS-based products beginning in 1999.

Apple will continue to market and sell its current inventory of MessagePad 2100 and eMate 300 computers, as well as to provide support for their installed base of users. The Company is committed to working with its customers and developers to ensure a smooth transition to Mac OS-based products.

Apple Computer, Inc. ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II, and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Apple is now recommitted to its original mission - to bring the best personal computing products and support to students, educators, designers, scientists, engineers, businesspersons and consumers in over 140 countries around the world.

The Newton had problems translating handwritten notes into text upon launch, leading to a wave of negative reviews and ridicule by the media. While the release of Newton OS 2.0 in March 1996 substantially improved the handwriting recognition feature, the Newton continued to be overshadowed by its initial poor reception, leading to the inevitable discontinuation of the device. Only an estimated 200,000 were ever sold.

Article Link: Apple Discontinued the Newton 25 Years Ago Today

 

[surfzen21]

I bought a palm pilot sometime in 1999-2000. Not a good purchase 🥲

I think i convinced myself it would help me be better organized. It did not.

 

[jimbobb24]

Handwriting recognition is hard. That was very ambitious for the time. Jobs killed the Newton and introduced its successor.

 

[MacWiz_007]

I still have one in my old school Apple stash. Good times!

 

[QuickDraw]

I still have one, For nostalgic reason i put some batteries in every few years, and admire how far we have come since then

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

Dang! I wish I had an opportunity to play around with Newton (PDA).

 

[aries81]

Eat up Martha.

 

[ahostmadsen]

I bought one of these. It had two issues: the handwriting recognition was impressive when demonstrated, but to be useful it has to have very few errors, and it was not there. Second, the device was too big to be pocketable, defeating the purpose of a device like this.

I bought a palm pilot instead, which was much smaller and with a less ambitious handwriting recognition that actually worked.

 

[erikkfi]

We'll never know what could have been.

 

[BenGoren]

How could this story not mention egg freckles!?

https://arctouch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/doonesbury-apple-newton-egg-freckles-lr-e1490303217696.jpg

I still have my original Newton in a drawer somewhere.

Those who remember the Palm Pilot might remember that the company got its start with an handwriting app for the Newton. You had to use a specialized alphabet, but it worked great. I wound up taking a lot of university class notes on the Newton, even used it for a bit of (very amateurish) fiction writing. And, of course, all the calendar / addressbook / etc functions that we now take for granted on our phones. I’m pretty sure I read a bunch of books from the Gutenberg library on it, too.

I had a folio case with a strapped-in backup / extended battery that gave me all-day use … the whole thing was about the size of a woman’s “clutch” purse — huge by today’s standards, yes, but shockingly small back then.

b&

 

[satchmo]

I bought one of these. It had two issues: the handwriting recognition was impressive when demonstrated, but to be useful it has to have very few errors, and it was not there. Second, the device was too big to be pocketable, defeating the purpose of a device like this.

I bought a palm pilot instead, which was much smaller and with a less ambitious handwriting recognition that actually worked.

Yeah the Newton isn't what you'd call pocketable, but I bought one anyways.

Of course I also bought a Palm Vx for its sleek design and diminutive size.

 

[Earl Urley]

Queue up all those old Doonesbury cartoons making fun of how the Newton mangled its speech recognition

 

[Silencio]

I bought a remaindered eMate 300 shortly after this announcement, and used that as a portable writing system for a long time. It was really perfect for that purpose, and much cheaper and less of a fuss than a contemporary laptop. I still have it, and it still works, though one day I'll get around to rebuilding the battery pack so it doesn't need to be plugged in to power. It's still good for a game of Mah Jongg, and it's one of Apple's very best design artifacts.

I also went over to the Palm Pilot ecosystem shortly after. It was definitely less fun than the Newton, but overall much more practical. The quality of the software eventually declined to the point where I couldn't wait to ditch PalmOS for an original iPhone, even with all its initial limitations.

Overall, I would never say the Newton as a platform was a "failure". Apple learned some critical lessons from the Newton about what to do — and what not to do — with the iPhone.

 

[dmr727]

I was one of the weirdos that actually liked the Newton when it was released. It was too ambitious in a lot of ways, but at the time it certainly felt like the future. But then the Palm Pilot came along and the rest is history.

 

[HenryMelton]

I had several Newtons and the notice of their abandonment was horrible news to me. There was much to love about the Newton. The handwriting issues were minor, about as annoying as autocorrect is today. There wasn't a file system, instead there was a database that was used for everything, and it was very useful. With the addition of the floppy disks, large personal applications could be maintained, and kept in your pocket. At least my pocket.

Probably I would have abandoned the Newton once the iPhone became capable, but there was a gap of years where there wasn't a good replacement and my old Newtons gradually suffered hardware issues. I definitely could have used incremental improvements over time.

 

[orbital~debris]

I used to go and marvel at the Apple Newton in a department store in the provincial city. I recall they used to keep them in a glass case you could only press your nose up against, so to speak. Getting to actually try one out was always out of reach – the closest I got was having a go on an eMate a little later when one was brought home temporarily by my Mum from her work – but I think I’d have got the hang of it pretty quickly thanks to all the articles I’d pored over in MacFormat, MacUser magazines!
💡

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

I had several Newtons and the notice of their abandonment was horrible news to me. There was much to love about the Newton. The handwriting issues were minor, about as annoying as autocorrect is today. There wasn't a file system, instead there was a database that was used for everything, and it was very useful. With the addition of the floppy disks, large personal applications could be maintained, and kept in your pocket. At least my pocket.

Probably I would have abandoned the Newton once the iPhone became capable, but there was a gap of years where there wasn't a good replacement and my old Newtons gradually suffered hardware issues. I definitely could have used incremental improvements over time.

Any love for the Newton was because of Apple fanboy evangelism because the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. The thing had a lot more issues besides the handwriting issues. Steve Jobs killed it off for a reason

 

[anthogag]

The Newton looks similar to today's Samsung S23 🤭

 

[bayportbob]

I think there were three different models, used them at work for evaluation for projects, they all never were acceptable for us to use, Doonesbury was correct when they mocked them...

 

[xraydoc]

Pretty sure I still have one in a box someplace. Bought it long after it was discontinued, however, just to play with.

 

[Darth Tulhu]

It's successor is Siri's speech recognition.

 

[boyarka]

... and from that time on, it has been a strong Apple tradition to dicontinue and vintage devices in 5 years or less.

 

[LlamaLarry]

I worked with Newton a long, long time ago when I was a developer at AOL. I thought it was pretty awesome although I ended up getting a Handspring for my personal PDA.

 

[jazz1]

I have horrible handwriting. But somehow my Newton did pretty well turning script into text. I still think it was quite innovative for its time! I did get an EDU discount, back when the EDU discount was decent.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Eat up Martha.

They must have trained Scribble on "beat up Martin" because it works every time now.