“Love Notes to Newton” is a film about the beloved pen-based Personal Digital Assistant created by Apple Computer (announced on May 29, 1992 and released on August 3, 1993) and what it meant for those who used it and the community who adore it even this this day.
The Apple Newton was beloved by almost everybody who had one. It came from an R&D group hidden deep within Apple Computer and was developed by people who believed it was the next big leap in computers. In one sense it was the legendary device which coined the term “PDA” in the early nineties, and in the other sense it was a devastating failure which arrived before its time. But something happened after the funeral, Newton lives on, and grassroots support sprang up.
John Sculley, James Joaquin, Steve Capps and others talk about the inspiring vision and the difficulty of achieving it. Then there’ are the fans; Grant Hutchinson, who hosts the lively NewTontalk mailing list out of Calgary, Alberta. There’s Frank Gruendel in Germany, who repairs Newtons, including eMates (the Newton “MacBook”) and is actively involved in repairing and advising others on the maintenance of their Newts, Paul Guyot and Matthias Melcher and the Einstein emulator to allow Newton OS to run on modern machines, and many more.
MacDailyNews Take: If you don’t love the Newton, you’ve never used one.
Just when they got it right (Newton 2100), Steve came back and killed it dead. Still, the Newton community struggles on today with handheld computers that in many respects are still the best on the market. Newton technology was used as the basis for the Inkwell component of Mac OS X Jaguar. — MacDailyNews, February 27, 2003
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I have an original Message Pad 110 (unopened) and a 2100 unopened if anyone’s is interested.
I had them all and still have the original and the 2100 somewhere, it still boots and has my notes. For some reason my first cat loved the power cable, only thing it has ever chewed on and it ate a bunch of them.
Yes, ahead of its time. PalmPilot was the device “just right” for its time. More limited functionality allowed smaller size that actually fit easily in pocket, and more affordable price. It acted as the convenient “on-the-go” extension of the Mac/PC user experience, much like symbiotic link between Apple Watch and iPhone. Newton DID make it to “a” future as props (using MessagePad 120) in Apple TV+ show For All Mankind. It alternate future, Newton made it big, seen making “FaceTime” calls, even from the Moon base. Macs nowhere to be seen.