September 4, 1997: The writing is on the wall for Apple’s Newton product line as the recently returned Steve Jobs effectively kills the Newton Inc. spinoff.
He tells executives at the recently spun-off company not to bother moving into their new offices. The flip-flop on the Newton spinoff by Apple’s new interim CEO takes employees by surprise.
It’s quite the turnaround for the Newton division. Only months earlier, Apple portrayed it as large (and successful) enough to become its own company.
May 29, 1992: Apple demonstrates its Newton MessagePad for the first time, showing how the upcoming PDA can be used to order a pizza and pull off other time-saving tricks.
Hailed by Apple CEO John Sculley as “nothing less than a revolution,” the Newton is Apple’s first major new product since the original Macintosh shipped eight years earlier. During the first Newton demo at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Apple shows how people can customize a pizza by moving topping icons on a symbolic pie. Then they can fax the order straight from the device.
May 22, 1997: Apple spins off its Newton division, creating an independent company to manage the line of personal digital assistants. Newton Inc.’s first job? Selling the MessagePad 2000 PDA, the best Newton device yet.
Apple also gave Newton Inc. a mandate to develop new technologies and market existing ones. “We have a solid business plan and a strong management team in place to optimize the value of Newton technology for corporate users and take Newton technology into a new era,” says Sandy Benett, former vice president of Apple’s Newton Systems Group and chief operating officer of the new venture.
Instead, it turns out to be the beginning of the end for the ahead-of-its-time Apple PDA.
April 19, 1994: Gaston Bastiaens, the executive in charge of Apple’s revolutionary new Newton MessagePad product line, parts ways with the company.
“We can’t say whether he fell or was pushed,” says an Apple spokesman. Reports suggest that the departing Bastiaens, general manager of Apple’s personal interactive electronics division, is leaving due to his failure to make the Newton a financial success.
March 25, 1993: Apple executive Gaston Bastiaens bets a journalist that the eagerly anticipated Newton MessagePad will ship before summer ends. The prize? Bastiaens’ well-stocked personal wine cellar, worth thousands of dollars.
The bet takes place at the CeBit trade show in Hanover, Germany. Bastiaens’ outburst comes in response to a reporter’s needling. The gamble not only gives the Newton a release timetable, but also a price target: less than $1,000.
March 13, 1997: With Apple preparing to cut thousands of jobs, CNN reports that “the coffin door is closing” on Cupertino. Apple is doomed! Doomed!
Knowing what happened in the years following, we guess this could technically be considered “fake news.”
March 10, 2004: Apple sends out a survey to select Apple customers, claiming that it is considering relaunching the Newton MessagePad.
“We need to determine why the Apple Newton was not a commercial success and whether there is an interest in re-launching a new version of the Newton,” Apple’s survey says. “Your comments will help understand why the Newton failed and if there is interest in re-launching a new, improved Newton.”
In hindsight, it seems pretty clear that this apparent “interest” in launching another personal data assistant was a way of doing some undercover market research for the still-in-development iPhone.
February 27, 1998: Apple discontinues work on the Newton MessagePad product line, the series of personal digital assistants the company launched five years earlier, and Newton OS, the operating system the devices run upon.
“This decision is consistent with our strategy to focus all our software development resources on extending the Macintosh operating system,” Apple’s interim CEO Steve Jobs says in a press release. “To realize our ambitious plans we must focus all of our efforts in one direction.”
January 30, 1995: Apple Computer launches the Newton MessagePad 120, the first truly great device in an unfairly maligned product line.
Coming 18 months after the original Newton MessagePad, the upgraded PDA packs more power — and truly shines once Newton OS 2.0 rolls out.
Larry Tesler, a pioneering computer scientist who worked at Apple from 1980 to 1997 and created computerized cut, copy and paste, died Monday at the age of 74.
Tesler served as VP of AppleNet and Apple’s Advanced Technology Group. During his time at Apple, he played a key role in the development of products ranging from the Lisa to the Newton MessagePad.
And that was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to his contribution to computing.
Apple’s privacy-focused appearance at this year’s CES marks the first time in 28 years the Cupertino company has appeared at the Consumer Electronics Show. It last had an official presence at CES way back in 1992.
Want a glimpse of what the world famous high-tech expo was like the last time Apple took the stage? Read on to find out.
The Newton MessagePad is probably the single most underrated product in Apple’s entire history. Now, thanks to a new eBay auction, you can get your hands on one of the rarest Newtons ever created.
The clear, limited production prototype Newton MessagePad 110 was given out to a select few people at Apple’s 1994 developer conference. Apple only ever made a few hundred units. If you’re quick, you could own one. For a price, of course.
Love Notes to Newton, a documentary about Apple’s ill-fated but influential Newton MessagePad, is getting a big screen showing. The documentary will be shown at the Living Computers Museum + Labs in Seattle, Washington on September 28.
It’s accompanied by a Q&A session with several members of the original Newton team who worked at Apple. If you’re an old-school Apple fan, this is a great opportunity to get the inside story.
There are plenty of documentaries about Steve Jobs, but fewer about the less obviously triumphant parts of Apple’s history.
A new doc wants to change that, however, by paying homage to one of Apple’s most unfairly maligned products: the Newton MessagePad.
Grant Hutchinson has never owned an iPad. He does, however, own some 15-dozen Newton devices, a few of which he uses every day to help manage tasks, a schedule and software clients.
Why would Hutchinson cling to and even rely on a clunky obsolete digital message pad, an Apple failure so big it inspired f-bomb rage in Steve Jobs and a week’s worth of damning Doonesbury comic strips?
Hutchinson is just one of a few thousand people worldwide who collect and even use Apple’s first mobile computing device, discontinued in 1998 after a number of incarnations over a rocky five-year run.
Think you got enough Apple stuff? Cult of Mac’s resident vintage expert Adam Rosen has collected so many Apple products over the last three decades, he converted part of his house into a museum to showcase them all.
Assembling your own collection of Mac gear isn’t easy, but the Vintage Mac Museum in the Boston area has managed to get its hands on some really neat — and odd — items, like a cutaway Mac Plus, a rare black Mac and more Apple memorabilia than any sane person should own.
Here’s a look at an incredible assortment of Apple products at the Vintage Mac Museum. Plus, find out what Adam thinks you should keep or toss.