While everyone eagerly awaits Apple’s new product launch tonight, we cast your mind back to the very first tablet device – the Newton

In my excitement in waiting for Apple’s announcement of its new “exciting product” tonight (27/01), I was doing some digging on the internet trying to learn all I could about this proposed tablet (by the way, I prefer the name iPad, it goes well with iPod, iPhone – see, all P’s). But one thing that I had forgotten about was Apple’s Newton – a tablet like device the tech giant produced in 1989.

I barely remember 1989, and I certainly wasn’t tech savvy back then. If I really think about it, I didn’t have a phone, an MP3 (or a walkman I suppose), a personal computer or even a Gameboy. I don’t actually remember anyone back then needing as much technology as we carry around with us today.

So, this is precisely why the Newton failed. There was no need for it.  

For those of you who don’t remember or were perhaps too young (yes, I fall into the latter category) I’ll give you a quick rundown of the Newton.

The Newton platform was an early personal digital assistant hardware/software platform developed by Apple that included that fun colourful Apple logo.

Most Newton devices were based on the ARM 610 RISC processor and all featured handwriting recognition software – back then, this was cool. The Newton project was a PDA platform. Newton was intended to be a complete reinvention of personal computing. For most of its design lifecycle Newton had a large-format screen, more internal memory, and an object-oriented graphics kernel.

The project, however, missed its original goals to reinvent personal computing and then to rewrite contemporary application programming. Apple was also scared that the device would interfere with Macintosh sales and the Newton was scrapped.

It has now been hailed as the “grandfather” of the iPhone – a device that was clearly before its time.

Fast forward 20 years and we are eagerly awaiting a bigger and better Newton. Steve Jobs himself did say that the company had been working on this new product for the past 10 years, but that he had always had it in his mind.

So what will make a tablet like device a success today?

1.       Our incessant need for technology

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