The Apple Newton, the failure that led to the iPhone

When one thinks of Apple and their products, you think of revolutionary products like the iPod, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, Macs and airpods. You probably don’t think about the Homepod, but hey everyone can’t bat 1000 right? Given Apple’s record of successful products, we can forgive them for the occasional flub. Before this record streak of successful products, Apple put out a revolutionary product, that didn’t do well in the marketplace. This product was called the Newton. We will look at the reasons the Newton didn’t take off.

In 1992, Apple announced the Newton. The Newton was coined a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) by then Apple CEO John Scully. The device could take notes, store contacts, and manage calendars. It could send a fax and even translate hand-writing into text. Now these are features that a basic Android phone can do today, but these were revolutionary features for 1993.

With the Newton, Apple’s intent was to create an entirely new class of computers. The goal was a computer that you could slip into your pocket and take on the go, theoretically. Users of the Newton could load additional programs on the Newton by linking it up to a Mac, though this feature was limited at launch. User space was limited on the Newton with users only getting around 140 kb in user storage, This amount is even more laughable than the 8 GB iPhone Apple used to sell. To offset this issue, Apple sold 1mb, 2mb and 4mb flashcards you can plug into the Newton for additional storage space, ironically a feature it does not offer on its iPhone or iPad today.

Once Apple announced plans for the Newton PDA, several competitors came up with competing devices. This turn of events sped up the timeline for the Newton’s debut in 1993. The result of this rushed timeline was an incomplete product that stumbled out of the gate. Apple barely got the Newton to function properly before it started shipping them to stores, and that is always a recipe for disaster.

1. Handwriting fiasco

The hand-writing recognition was supposed to be the Newton’s killer feature, except for it worked poorly. The software attempted to recognize whole words written by the user, but it often failed and translated into random and weird sayings. Critics derided the hand-writing feature. The device was mocked for a whole week on the comic strip Doonesbury and in an episode of the Simpsons. The hand writing recognition got better over the next 5 years of the Newton, unfortunately, the Newton could never shake the perception of its performance from its debut.

2. Pricing

The Newton had three models all priced differently. None of the models were what anybody would consider “affordable.” The Senior was 9 x12 inches and cost $ 5,000. A midsize model was 6 x9 and cost less than $ 2,000. The smallest model was called Junior; it was 4.5 x7 inches and cost $500. Yes, Apple was price gouging people back in the 90s too. It’s important to keep in mind the problems with the hand-writing recognition,  and the limited memory space. You were paying well above market price for a slightly more useful notepad. The Next computer that Steve Jobs was working on at the time stated at $ 10,000 starting and people considered that absurd. Can you imagine paying $ 5,000 for an iPhone plus that didn’t work that great and had a lot of bugs? Well, that was equivalent to buying the Senior Newton back in 1993. Only people like MC Hammer or early tech adopters had money to blow on such devices.

Apple sold a measly 50,000 Newtons in the products first four months on the market. The Newton was supposed to be a major new force of revenue for Apple that would rival the Apple II and the Macintosh. The Newton instead became a 90s meme. Steve Jobs hated the Newton because of its poor performance and because it was Scully’s innovation (the Apple board sided with Scully over Jobs in 1985, which led to Jobs departure) and baby. Jobs also hated the stylus input on the Newton. Jobs stated “God gave us ten styluses,” talking about our fingers, “lets not invent another one.” When Jobs wrestled back control over Apple, he killed off the Newton line, his reasoning was that Apple had too many projects going on.

The Newton was groundbreaking and innovative, unfortunately, the technology just wasn’t there at the time to make it practical and reliable. Though the Newton could never fulfill the promise everyone saw in it when it was first announced, the thinking behind the project is still with us today. The main logic behind the Newton was to take the computer out of the office or home and have it carried around with you in your purse, briefcase, or pocket. The newton led to the Palm Pilot, which led to the Windows tablet, which led to early smart phones like the Blackberry, which led to the iPhone and other modern day smart phones. Though the Newton failed, most of us still use its successors today.