Apple Newton

Michael Tchao (dates unavailable), John Sculley (b. 1939)

In 1993, electronic organizers had limited capabilities and functionality. They
could hold names, addresses, and phone numbers. The Apple Newton was
something much more ambitious: a complete reimagining of personal
computing into a handheld, portable device that allowed the user to access and
store information, write, be creative, and invent. Instead of storing data in files,
the Newton used an object-oriented “soup,” allowing different applications to
seamlessly access each other’s data in an intelligent, structured manner. In
one demo, a person could receive an email message with Apple Mail, find the
dates and times in the message, and use that information to schedule an
appointment between the sender and recipient.
Newton was best known for the integrated stylus that it used for input and its
ability to recognize English handwriting, both print and cursive. Because
handwriting recognition was computationally intensive, Apple invested in a
new, low-power microprocessor from a British company: the Acorn RISC
Machine (ARM).
Apple’s engineers had been working on various versions of a portable computer
since 1987. The project had caught the attention of Apple’s CEO John Sculley,
who had created a concept video called “Knowledge Navigator” for the 1987
EDUCOM educational computing conference. Michael Tchao, a manager at
Apple, pitched to Sculley, during a plane trip in 1991, the idea of creating an
actual digital assistant.
Today the Newton is generally regarded as one of Apple’s flops. Cartoonist
Garry Trudeau mercilessly mocked the problems in the computer’s handwriting
capabilities in his popular Doonesbury comic strip. The Newton was never able
to shake the reputation of having poor handwriting recognition, even when the
acknowledged problems were largely addressed in version 2 of the machine’s
operating system.
Newton’s other problem was its size: it was too large to fit in a pocket but too
small to replace a desktop computer for serious computing. In many ways, it
was just too different. Even though Apple sold 50,000 units the first three
months, sales did not live up to expectations. Steve Jobs killed the product
when he returned to Apple in 1997.
SEE ALSO Touchscreen (1965), PalmPilot (1997)
The Apple MessagePad 100, developed for the Apple Newton platform, displayed
at the Musée Bolo in Lausanne, Switzerland.