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January 30, 1995: Apple Laptop launches the Newton MessagePad 120, the primary actually nice system in an unfairly maligned product line.
Coming 18 months after the authentic Newton MessagePad, the upgraded PDA packs extra energy — and actually shines as soon as Newton OS 2.0 rolls out.
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Newton MessagePad: Apple’s first pill
The Newton MessagePad product line proved astonishingly forward of its time. In reality, the Newton laid the essential basis for a lot of Apple’s later success with cell units. Nevertheless, it debuted a few decade too early to actually take off.
The PDA let customers take notes, make calendar entries, and many others. It even featured surprisingly good synthetic intelligence to utilize contextual knowledge. As an illustration, writing the phrase “Meet Killian Bell for lunch on Wednesday” would create an entry within the MessagePad’s calendar app on the acceptable time.
The system additionally let customers beam knowledge to different Newtons or rival digital organizers through an infrared transmitter.
John Sculley’s product line
The Newton was typically regarded, each inside and outdoors Apple, as CEO John Sculley‘s reply to the Mac. The PDA was his first try and launch a game-changing new product line.
“It was Sculley’s Macintosh,” Frank O’Mahoney, one of many Apple advertising managers who labored on the Newton, instructed me after I interviewed him for my guide The Apple Revolution. “It was Sculley’s alternative to do what Steve had carried out, however in his personal class of product.”
By early 1995, Sculley had been gone from Apple for greater than a yr. Nevertheless, the Newton MessagePad undertaking continued at a frankly dazzling tempo. Cupertino produced so many variations that it’s a bit complicated to make sense of them as we speak.
For those who’ve ever discovered your self questioning how confused the Apple system lineup was within the mid-Nineties, take into account this: Regardless of coming only a year-and-a-half after the primary MessagePad shipped in 1993, the 120 was already the fourth mannequin Apple made.
Newton MessagePad 120: Code title Gelato
Photograph: Apple
Code-named “Gelato,” the MessagePad 120 adopted the unique Newton MessagePad, the MessagePad 100 and the MessagePad 110. Spec-wise, it got here in each 1MB and 2MB choices. The system packed a 20-MHz ARM 610 processor and 4MB of upgradable ROM. The MessagePad 120 appeared principally equivalent to its MessagePad 110 predecessor, though it lacked that mannequin’s rubberized floor.
Initially, clients who purchased the MessagePad 120 had to make use of the identical working system that shipped with the unique system. Later, they might improve to the vastly superior Newton OS 2.0, which corrected most of the issues related to the primary mannequin.
Newton OS 2.0
These issues included dodgy handwriting recognition. Newton OS 2.0 fastened that with new Rosetta and ParaGraph handwriting software program (the primary for printed textual content, the second for cursive).
The upgraded cell working system additionally let customers sketch shapes on-screen, which might then be acknowledged as deformable vector graphics. In different phrases, scribble a circle in your MessagePad and the system would acknowledge it as a circle.
As well as, very similar to iPads or the phablet-size iPhone fashions, Newton OS 2.0 allowed customers to decide on between panorama and portrait orientations.
It even introduced a proto-Siri function, whereby you can ask questions like, “How do I [do a certain thing]?” (though not through voice recognition). The Newton would then information you thru the mandatory steps.
Is that this the Newton MessagePad for you?
As I’ve talked about a number of instances in “At this time in Apple historical past” posts, I’ve bought a large mushy spot for Apple through the Nineties. Positive, if I used to be investing in Apple I might’ve hated it (except I had the foresight to carry onto my shares). However it was a time when Apple was taking some huge dangers and actually — to make use of a later phrase — “pondering completely different.” It was a enjoyable, albeit irritating, interval to be an Apple fan.
The Newton MessagePad epitomized this. The primary-gen system was ever-so-slightly crippled, so it by no means achieved {the marketplace} momentum it ought to have. A pre-internet system, it could have benefited immeasurably from connectivity. That’s precisely what made the iPhone such a giant hit years later.
For those who had been going to select up a MessagePad as we speak to see what all of the fuss was about, the Newton MessagePad 120 with Newton OS 2.0 is the primary mannequin I might give an unequivocal suggestion. On this approach, the system line actually was Sculley’s Macintosh. As with the Mac, it took a number of iterations earlier than Apple lastly nailed the components.
In 1995, a MessagePad 120 value $599, with an additional $109 for the working system improve. At this time, you can in all probability choose one up for 100 bucks (and even much less in the event you’re fortunate).
As a bit of iconic Apple gear, it’s by no means going to have the identical worth as a first-generation iPhone or an authentic Macintosh 128K. It actually ought to, although.
Do you keep in mind the MessagePad 120? Go away your feedback beneath.
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