13 Responses to “Apple Newton”

1. Grant Hutchinson Says:
   August 31st, 2007 at 3:03 pm

   Wrong. What was wrong with the Newton price point and an inept launch strategy, not the form factor. You’re a fool if you are simply comparing the iPod and it’s size to various iterations of the Newton and their sizes. The marketplace, intelligence and functionality of the two platforms is completely different. The form factor of the Newton was what set it apart (and still sets it apart) from any other portable, multi-function digital organization and productivity device. You might want to apply a bit more research (or even try using a Newton) before making such statements in the future.

2. Me Says:
   August 31st, 2007 at 3:35 pm

   Ouch, that’s really harsh dude. Everybody is entitled to an opinion.

3. lens Says:
   August 31st, 2007 at 3:58 pm

   I think the Newton deserves consideration for #1 on the worst scale. It is responsible for so much damage to the portable device market, we are now only just recovering. In spite of it’s failure in the market, the Newton managed to convince the world that a handheld device HAD to have pen input. It’s taken almost 10 years for handheld makers to finally realize that most people HATE pens. Now finally, we are almost rid of them. I think if the Newton never existed, we’d have gotten here a lot sooner.

4. WTPhuqet Says:
   September 20th, 2007 at 10:15 pm

   Seriously, who writes this crap?!?!? High school kids?!?!? Where’s the citation from the author who likens carrying a Newton to a handbag? And talk about form factor! The reason the form factor of the Newton was what it was and the form factor of an iPod was what it was resulted from technology advances from 1994 to 2000 enabling you to actually build something with that form factor! The computing power and portability that the Newton represented a serious breakthrough in a commerically available device. And ‘lens,’ gimme a break. You were likely in diapers when the newton came out. The Newton was modled after the infinitely popular Day-Timer professionals would carry. Input method? Pen. It was ment to adapt to the user, and the marketing around how well it was supposed to be that set the wrong expectation with users and that’s why it never achieved a bigger market. Oh… and it was viewed as John Sculleys pet project, so Steve killed it when he returned to Apple as a big “Hi-Ho Fuck You” for the perceived back-stabbing John gave him.

5. admin Says:
   September 21st, 2007 at 12:16 am

   Yeah, the reason the 1960’s vacuum tube driven Newton’s form factor had to be the size of the Hindenburg, but they decided to go ahead anyway, was just because they didn’t have the right technology to make a pocket sized device.

6. Michiel Says:
   September 26th, 2007 at 7:22 am

   I used to work with this device before modern pda’s where available! I was a surveiller at Amsterdam Airport and most respondents found it highly suphistocated that I had this machine for taking a questionair. Apple was far beyond others with this device, though it was quite heavy to carry around all day!

7. WTPhuquet Says:
   September 26th, 2007 at 2:40 pm

   Hmmm… I guess they never learn.

   http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/09/26/up_next_for_apple_the_return_of_the_newton.html

   Rumored to be 1.5 times the size of the iPhone. That puts them back to the original Newton form factor. I think I’m going to take your advice ‘admin’ and get into the “handbag” business.

8. John Davis Says:
   October 11th, 2007 at 6:29 pm

   I don’t understand why the Newton is on this list. It was way ahead of anything else in its time and paved the way for PDAs. It was/is a great OS with lots of very sensible ideas. For example all documents you created with it were automatically saved. The handwriting recognition was terrible in the first models and this is what gave the Newton a bad name. But by the last version, this had gotten pretty good and it was very definitely a useable machine.

   John Davis

9. Jay Says:
   November 8th, 2007 at 3:22 pm

   Where is the Apple toilet seat laptop on this list?

10. ballsak Says:
    September 22nd, 2008 at 5:40 pm

    eww. just, eww.

11. nick Says:
    December 7th, 2008 at 10:05 am

    that phuquet guy is a total ass. I’ve read quite a few of these articles now and he is always leaving shitty comments, like he’s so fucking smart, yet cannot spell everyday words like ‘model’. He probably doesn’t say shit in real life, but on the net he is liberated by the anonymity of it all.

12. MAXIMILIEN Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 6:32 pm

    While I do love this site quite honestly I personally think that the editor is retarded or 12 years old. The technology in this pda was revolutionaly even the stylus was a great addition, Before the styus you were forced to deal with buttons on a semi graphical user interface. Are you serious? This product didnt fail becouse of size it was the most advanced and smallest pda at the time. While all people are welcome to their own opinions that doenst mean that you can start a blog and not expect people critize your ignorance.

13. JOe Says:
    March 4th, 2012 at 4:13 pm

    The Newton was not a failure. It is gone because it was deliberately killed off by Steve Jobs, as someone else pointed out. Steve J.’s sense of vision told him the PDA market was going to be a dog-eat-dog place to be in a few hears hence. A few years later after he’d killed off the Newton, he gave a magazine interview where the interviewer wanted to recall some of the changes S. J. brought about when he came back to Apple. About the Newton, Steve said he’d killed it because the PDA market was not going to be “the funnest place to be” in the near future. At the time of the interview the dominant PDA maker was Palm, but Palm was being challenged by newcomers. Palm was on its way out. Jobs had seen that if Apple had stuck with the Newton, the Newton would have turned into a money hemorrage amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage to Apple. And so it had to go. It didn’t fail. It was terminated with extreme prejudice by the same visionary who resurrected Apple.

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