February 27, 1998: Apple discontinues work on the Newton MessagePad product line, the collection of non-public digital assistants the corporate launched 5 years earlier.
“This determination is in step with our technique to focus all our software program growth assets on extending the Macintosh working system,” Steve Jobs says on the time. “To appreciate our formidable plans we should focus all of our efforts in a single course.”
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The unhappy demise of Newton MessagePad
On the time, folks considered the demise of the Newton with disappointment and slight (although not whole) shock. It was unhappy as a result of, after struggling just a few technical teething pains early on, the MessagePad and Newton OS had lastly morphed into a very nice product.
Simply 4 months earlier, Apple launched the ultimate Newton — the MessagePad 2100. It had been the perfect iteration of the product but. The MessagePad 2100 packed expanded reminiscence, enhanced pace and upgraded communications software program.
By this level, Apple engineers had solved the Newton’s handwriting-recognition issues. The consequence was as helpful a pocket system as you might count on within the days earlier than ubiquitous cellular web entry.
The spinoff of Newton, Inc.
What made the cancellation of the MessagePad mission a bit shocking was that Apple had, just a few months earlier, spun out the product line as its personal firm, Newton, Inc. That transfer prompt to many who the PDA was lastly prepared for prime time.
The Newton’s demise didn’t completely shock shut observers, nonetheless.
Of the 130 staff working at Newton Inc., simply 30 remained as a part of the group in February 1998. The others moved over to a different top-secret Apple product (the first-generation iBook).
Different folks famous that new CEO Jobs didn’t just like the Newton. The Apple PDA was a pet mission of John Sculley, the CEO chargeable for Jobs’ departure from Apple greater than a decade earlier in 1985. Though Sculley was now not Apple’s CEO for almost all of the Newton’s product life, the system’s early growth befell underneath his watch.
Apple Newton’s closing days
Photograph: Apple
Individuals in some corners considered the Newton as Sculley’s reply to the Mac — his first try to launch a game-changing new product line throughout his tenure as CEO.
“It was Sculley’s Macintosh,” Frank O’Mahoney, one of many Apple advertising managers who labored on the Newton, advised me after I interviewed him for my guide The Apple Revolution. “It was Sculley’s alternative to do what Steve had performed, however in his personal class of product.”
Jobs could have harbored a little bit of residual resentment towards the Newton product line. (He did so for most of the modifications that befell at Apple throughout his absence.) However he wasn’t completely improper to ditch the MessagePad.
Throughout its 4.5 years on sale, the Apple PDA offered solely 150,000 to 300,000 models, regardless of a number of {hardware} and software program updates and continuous work. As Jobs confirmed within the years that adopted, the Apple co-founder cared about blockbuster merchandise that will promote to the lots.
The Newton simply didn’t minimize it.
Not the top
On the time, it appeared the Newton was sure to go down as a captivating — and genuinely pioneering — footnote within the Apple historical past books. In reality, it with data of how Apple makes the vast majority of its cash right now, the Newton MessagePad line may be considered as an early prototype for the iPhone and iPad.
For proof, simply take a look at this unique Eighties “Data Navigator” teaser for the mission that turned the MessagePad. Does the video remind you of something?
Did you personal a Newton?
Do you keep in mind the Newton? Which mannequin, if any, did you personal? Do you assume Jobs did the appropriate factor when he killed Apple’s PDA?
