The Apple TV+ series For All Mankind has been using Newtons as alt-history iPads with FaceTime.
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Apple Discontinued the Newton 25 Years Ago Today
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Its starting price of $699 (around $1,450 inflation adjusted) in 1993 makes today's iPhones look like bargains! 
I had an iPaq. HP/Compaq should sue apple for ™ violations. iPad is just iPaq with the q upside down.
en.wikipedia.org
iPAQ - Wikipedia
I found it very useful, wether in the PDA or Treo form factor, as a business tool. It kept my calendar, phone numbers and I could record expesnes when incurred and export them via CSV. As always, YMMV.
Same here.
Graffiti. An excellant tool.
I reviewed the MessagePad 2000, with keyboard, for a paper. Very useful but man the keyboard was loud.
I had the Handspring (still have it somewhere). Used it for about a year, then it just started sitting at the bottom of my bag and rarely taken out.
The Palm was a great bit of kit. I think my last was the Treo.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.
I knew a guy who had a Newton back in the early ‘90’s - it was so ahead of its time that it seemed like a magic tablet when he showed me. Of course I couldn’t believe he spent the money on it either, as I was using a mainframe computer at work and took notes in business meetings using a notebook (the paper kind), which is how most people were operating at this point.
I know we like to look back at USD inflation against Apple devices, still even with astronomical values in todays US dollars people still paid that in groves. Mac 128K was $2,499 USD in 1984 and $7,230.91 in 2023 USD.Its starting price of $699 (around $1,450 inflation adjusted) in 1993 makes today's iPhones look like bargains!
So while technology has gotten cheaper over the years and furnishes a lot more capability compared to earlier Apple devices, those earlier devices were state of the art back in the day.
Same! I got my Palm Pilot and never actually used it. I think I dabbled in it the first few days after purchase and then it went unused. I loved looking at it and bragging about it and that was about it.
And queue up all those people who still brought up the Doonesbury cartoons even after the handwriting recognition got good. I had a Newton 2100 (I think it was) and the handwriting recognition was quite good. But people are so determined to jeer at a problem that they'll ignore when it's fixed. Handwriting recognition is never perfect but the Newton got really good.
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 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: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
Always wanted one, never had the extra cash to get one...
I had an iPaq. HP/Compaq should sue apple for ™ violations. iPad is just iPaq with the q upside down.
iPAQ - Wikipedia
I had one too. It could run Quake.…6 years before the iPhone came out.
There was a cellphone sleeve but I didn’t have it.
I remember reading an article that said the real reason Steve Jobs killed the Newton was because it was the baby of John Sculley and Jobs didn't want to have anything to do with anything that Sculley pushed for.
Possibly. Apple also didn’t have the ecosystem that exists today. The Mac, Apple][ and Newton did not form a cohesive system.
Without the Newton, there would be no iPhone. Why? Because the Newton project was why Apple invested in Arm, Inc., which allowed Arm to optimize their architecture for low power devices (the first Arm chips were for desktop PCs.)
Apple later sold ARM stock, which was a big factor in keeping Apple from going bankrupt. Then Apple used the Arm architecture chips in the first iPhones.
Apple later sold ARM stock, which was a big factor in keeping Apple from going bankrupt. Then Apple used the Arm architecture chips in the first iPhones.
"......being the first major device from the company designed by Sir Jony Ive..."
Uh no. It's Jony Ive. We don't have titles here in the US
Uh no. It's Jony Ive. We don't have titles here in the US
It's crazy for me to think that only 9 years after they discontinued this, Apple introduced the iPhone, which was eons ahead.
I didn't get on board with Apple until 2003-4, so I completely missed the Newton. Picked one up a few years back, with Newton OS 1.0. The handwriting recognition is pretty bad, for sure, but the device had potential. They just missed the boat with designing a premium luxury item instead of a lowest-common denominator device. That's what Palm got right. Apple made the same mistake with the first gen Apple Watch, too.
I used HP100LX palmtops instead--full DOS in your pocket. Then switched to a HP 620LX, then a Compaq iPad, and finally a Treo 600 before the iPhone.
I used HP100LX palmtops instead--full DOS in your pocket. Then switched to a HP 620LX, then a Compaq iPad, and finally a Treo 600 before the iPhone.
I was fortunate enough to attend an event where Douglas Adams was speaking back in 1997(ish) and he had his speaker notes on a Newton. Because he forgot to scroll it up and down a bit it went to sleep part way through his speech and we had to wait while he got it to wake up.
But it was Douglas Adams so no one cared and also he told a hilarious story while he was fiddling with it.
But it was Douglas Adams so no one cared and also he told a hilarious story while he was fiddling with it.