The first tablet. Part 2

Translation of the second part of the article about Apple Newton (first here )

What killed Newton

MessagePad devices were smaller than laptops (especially laptops from the mid-1990s), but they were not pocket-sized either. And Palm Pilot - were. Newton cost around $ 800–900, Palm Pilot $ 300–400. Of course, not the price was decisive in the collapse of Newton: many successful devices cost much more. The main thing is that Apple could not explain in a nutshell why Newton is worth the money.

The original Palm Pilot went on sale in 1996, that is, three years after the original Newton. Therefore, we can’t say that they directly competed with each other and that with the release of Pilot, the sunset of Newton began. However, the success of Pilot set the direction in which Apple was supposed to move after the Newton debut in 1993: less and cheaper. Instead, Apple decided to keep both size and price, and took the path of increasing functionality and performance. If Apple had a Newton-based device by 1995, but the size of a Palm Pilot and for $ 400, today the world would be completely different. (If Newton became a hit, Apple would not have had so many problems in 1996. Perhaps it would not even have to buy NeXT and call Jobs back.)

I think it’s normal when the first product is ahead of its time, when it is ambitious. But the main thing here is not to overdo it, not get ahead of your time so much that subsequent versions of the product will no longer be able to improve the concept in practical terms. Yes, Newton improved every year - but in the wrong direction. His ambitions grew. Look at the iPhone: the difference between the first iPhone and today's 3GS is progressive, it is all in the practical dimension. Performance, memory, price. This is an evolutionary improvement, not an explosion of functionality.

Newton is a product of the offline era, its debut coincided with the start of the Internet revolution. Today, all computers are communication devices. Newton was created differently. I do not mean that Apple was supposed to invent Wi-Fi in 1993. I’m talking about something else: the lack of wireless connectivity has become an important factor, because of which Newton has not attracted the mass consumer. At the beginning, the Palm Pilot was not an Internet device either, but it was not needed for it because it was cheaper.

Newton had incredible technology. But it is one thing when something works well, and another when something generally works and is therefore unique. Many today remember Newton only one thing - his terrible handwriting, which the Simpsons and the Dunsbury laughed at. However, Newton damned well recognized block letters. Personally, I had a MessagePad 130, and later I bought a Handspring Visor on Palm OS. The recognition of block letters on MessagePad was no worse than graffiti on Visor, and without any cramming of characters. But here, I personally didn’t get a handwriting input personally on Newton. But it was already surprising that he even existed and somehow worked. Everyone understood that Apple did a gigantic job. But the technology was still raw, it could not be installed - but they did. I think Newton’s reputation would be better

One of the hallmarks of Apple under Jobs is that they only promote completely refined functionality, even if you have to leave something unfinished behind the scenes (a simple example is copying and pasting onto an iPhone). The design of the iPhone is dictated by purely pragmatic considerations. Here's an iPhone or iPod touch - what functionality do they offer the consumer? To answer this question, just look at the bottom of the home screen, in the application dock: calls, mail, the Internet, movies, music. This is what we do on the iPhone. This is people who love, it captivates them.

What can you do with Newton? Notes, calendars, addresses. All major features on Newton are secondary to the iPhone. Worse, Newton did not have a good sync, and this finally sentenced him as a replacement for a paper notebook and organizer. It was an island in the middle of the sea, not a bridge connecting the user and data elsewhere. With Palm Pilot, the situation was much better (especially on Windows, where the synchronization worked especially well). The relationship between the Palm Pilot and the computer was clear and understandable: the computer is the main device, Palm is the periphery. Newton's relationship with a Mac or PC was foggy. The size also played a role: Newton was portable, but clearly not pocket-sized.

I have long had a theory that at some point the Newton team succumbed to pride and set out to make Newton something more than just a peripheral for a Mac or PC. Similarly, the original Mac was initially incompatible with the then very popular Apple II. For Apple, Newton became the Big Achievement; they no longer thought of it as a satellite device next to a Mac or PC. Such pride is not necessarily bad or erroneous; in the case of the Macintosh, it worked. But this is always a risk: you go all-in and you can lose everything. Which is what happened.

It’s incorrect to believe that Newton was killed by “high price” and “large size”, especially in the light of the current mythical tablet: according to the Wall Street Journal, it will have a large 10-inch screen and a price tag around $ 1000. I don't think Newton was too big and expensive; but he was too big and expensive for his abilities . That's why Palm won, and Newton lost. Apple wanted to create a "tablet computer", but the functionality was at the level of a handheld peripheral device.

Success or failure never determines only one factor. It is always a balance of many factors, always concessions. Palm with Pilot made the concessions far smarter than Apple with Newton.

And today there is no company that knows how to make concessions better than Apple. And certainly you can’t say that today Apple does not understand the difference between a portable device and a handheld.