---------- ---------- PC Pro Realworld Computing: Paul Lynch - PDAs

RIP Newton

Apple have announced that the they will discontinue development of the Newton OS. They may continue with the eMate casing design for new small computers based around MacOS, however.

Apple launched the Newton in August 1993, after a slow development process; it was the one big product initiated by John Sculley during his time as not only Chief Executive Officer, but also Chief Technical Officer at Apple. The original Message Pad was admired but with scepticism: it catapulted Apple to fame in Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury cartoon strip with the eccentric interpretations that the hand writing recogniser could make. New models of the Message Pad were invariably bigger and heavier; they were also faster with better battery life and much more accurate at recognising hand writing.

Despite these criticisms, the Newton was very much ahead of its time. The user interface had been carefully chosen to represent a personal digital assistant (a term invented by Sculley for the Newton), using a carefully recreated memo pad as the first part of the interface that any user would see. All programming and all data storage used object oriented paradigms, making the Newton incredibly easy to program for (although very hard to learn how to program). Every handheld computing device since has been a tribute to the Newton, either by carefully duplicating its interface, or by small nods to the Newton in the names, icons or selection of applications with the system, or with other design features like the stylus and touchscreen.

Arguably the most successful handheld computer is the Pilot/PalmPilot/Palm; its designers started developing the Graffiti software for Newton, and when they came to design a PDA of their own, it reflected the Newton user interface in every aspect. Without the Newton, Palm Computing could never have developed the Pilot.

Although others were taking the ideas of the Newton to success, Apple were stumbling over the beast they had created. Allegedly one of the factors that led to the exit of Sculley from Apple was his desire to produce a Newton in a PC Card form factor, a desire that eventually was realised last year with Starfish Software's REX. Attempts to solve the hunger for battery of the original Message Pad caused the first increase in size by expanding the battery compartment, an increase that has been followed in every subsequent new model, leading Apple to eventually always advertise the Message Pad 2100 with the optional keyboard attached. After the original Message Pad no further model could conveniently be carried in a suit jacket pocket.

The real problems that caused the death of the Newton were only ever hinted at. It was said that the Apple logo on Newton was a sure way to lose sales; maybe that accusation could equally well be directed at Apple's hand at the helm. The first version of NewtOS couldn't handle large memory cards (over 4 Mb) because it was very inefficient at handling such unexpectedly large blocks of memory. Although this behaviour was improved in NewtOS 2.0, it could never have handled any kind of mass storage device. Without the ability to handle such large volumes of data as had become commonplace by the mid-nineties, projects to implement speech recognition and Java virtual machines on the Newton because quiet failures.

Attempts to sell the Newton division were reported from the earliest days, but were never successful. Eventually Apple agreed to spin Newton off as a separate division of Apple, much like the ill-fated Claris software subsidiary. Without the Apple logo, people assumed that Newton would do much better. And so it turned out: the first products of this new division were the MessagePad 2000 and the eMate, both of which sold far better than any previous Newton product. Barely had they been commissioned from the factories, and Apple's new CEO, Steve Jobs, merged the division back in to Apple. Steve Jobs was the person who, in his notorious Fireside Chat at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference last year, had spent a significant fraction of his time rubbishing the Newton as that scribble thing. According to Jobs, the only point of a PDA was to handle email, and to do that you needed a keyboard. But, he claimed at the time, he's not running Apple.

And so Newton Inc was recalled into the folds of Apple Computer, and the Newton division was finally wound up.

At the press conference discussing the closure, Apple executives said that they would replace the NewtOS line with a version of MacOS, presumably using the eMate case design, and including some technologies from the Newton, such as handwriting recognition.

I'll happily go on record and say that the NewtOS was overdue for something drastic. As reported in this column, it could crash with consummate ease at the slightest provocation, and it was just too big for its role. But it still had better potential than any other approach to PDAs; to turn it in for a poor man's attempt at Windows CE using MacOS is worse than a bad joke. It looks as if Steve Jobs has taken his shot at revenge on John Sculley at last.



Words and design by:
Paul Lynch
Last updated: March 11, 1998

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