The Newton: Failure?. Top Ten PDA Failures: I guess I take exception to the Apple Newton being on this list. Yes, it failed, but it was the failure that got everyone thinking about what was possible. In that sense, it was like the Tucker of PDAs.
Perhaps one of the most ambitious tech projects in recent times, Apple spent hundreds of millions of dollars on devices that were at first ridiculed, then ignored. The Newton was disparaged because of its inaccurate handwriting recognition, which was fixed in later versions, and it was never able to live down its reputation.
I still remember sitting on the back steps of a classroom at Camp Pendleton, CA where I was on my two weeks active duty requirement at the time. This would have been summer of 1994. Some guy had a Newton and everyone was crowded around him to see what it did. I watched in amazement as he scribbled over some text and it disappeared in a little puff of "smoke." I was blown away.
Sadly, I also remember the Doonesbury strip that made fun of the handwriting recognition. I found an old scan of the seminal panel from his strip here. "Egg Freckles"?
Incidentally, I also stumbled across the CNet article from 1998 announcing the death of Newton.
Ah, memories. Via OSNews. [Gadgetopia]
It's interesting to note that the other nine items were failures for technical or market reasons, whereas the Newton was a technical and (by the time it was cancelled) market success. The Newton was a "failure" solely because Steve Jobs didn't like it.
I think the Palm and PocketPC OSes will be joining the "failure" list soon. These devices were never very useful, but I used to see people at least bring them to meetings, even if they sat untouched the entire time while notes were taken on yellow legal pads. Now they've vanished entirely, replaced by cell phones that incorporate what few features Palm and PocketPC devices had.
1:30:42 PM 
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