The Apple Newton MessagePad
Apple’s first attempt at a tablet was an utter failure. First appearing in 1993, the Newton MessagePad was marketed as a simple and portable device that acted as your personal digital assistant. Through its ability to send faxes, take notes, manage calendars, and store contacts, Newton was advertised to consumers as the object that can replace all existing technologies, including a fax machine, a notebook, a planner, and a phonebook (Honan, 2013). The marketing of the Newton MessagePad aimed for a general audience through vivid imagery and descriptive messages, but its faulty hardware and inability to produce what was promised led to its ultimate demise in February of 1998, just five years after its debut.
Among all of the functions advertised, its main selling point was its ability to translate human text into computer text when the user used the provided stylist. Through this translation to computer text, Newton was able to comprehend action words, such as “send” or “schedule” and act upon them. Furthermore, this technology could detect what shapes the user drew and make them into perfect computer shapes. This translation is precisely what distinguishes this piece of technology as new media. As described by Lev Manovich, new media must maintain five principles: numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability, and transcoding (Manovich, 2001). This translation from human input into computer digitized text translates what the user inputs into computer code or numerical data, which allows its modules (e.g., shapes, text, images) to be manipulated and re-formatted between computers (Manovich, 2001). This translation from user input to computer code which can be manipulated and transferred to other computers is precisely why the Newton MessagePad is considered a piece of new media (Manovich, 2001)
Apple released an ad campaign when Newton debuted to showcase a variety of users. The Newton MessagePad was showcased as a portable device that could go with you anywhere. As shown in Figure 1, this advertisement campaign, which appeared in popular media outlets, such as Byte Magazine, targeted a wide variety of users, including the American working man, the on-the-go parent, and the busy college student.
The slogan “Your World, Your Newton,” adds personalization to this piece of technology by stating that the Newton could fit into your lifestyle, no matter how unique. When it was first advertised through this campaign, Apple intended to showcase individuals who lead very different lives in very different social groups, all using the same device. According to this advertisement, the Newton and the need to always be on-the-go were the cultural threads that tied all of these identities together. Paul Du Gay described the idea of always being on-the-go as a signifying practice that uplifted this device from a new media technology to a social technology (Gay, 1997). This signifying practice and association with the way you use an Apple Newton MessagePad allowed it to gain meaning through its connection to a cultural practice (Gay, 1997).
Along with this advertisement campaign, Apple also released a set of descriptive one-page advertisements to describe all the capabilities of the Newton MessagePad. As shown in Figure 2, these graphic, text-heavy advertisements focused on the technology behind the Newton.
This advertisement explains how your pager, calendar, notepad, phone book, and fax machine could be replaced with a portal, all-in-one device that comes with new features. This comparison between the Newton MessagePad and forms of old media helps the user understand the capabilities of the MessagePad by framing it around technologies, such as the fax machine, that the user already understands. As described by Lisa Gitelman and Geoffrey Pingree, this comparison helps users understand the new media technology through existing social understandings of old media (Gitelman & Pingree, 2003). For instance, the user understands that a calendar is used to keep track of dates, and a fax machine is used to fax documents. When Apple frames the Newton MessagePad around these technologies, the user can better grasp what the capabilities of the new technology are. Furthermore, this comparison advertises the newness of the Newton technology by explaining how the MessagePad far surpasses old media technologies through new features it offers (e.g., transforming human text to computer text).
While Apple tried to run successful advertising campaigns that aimed for a wide variety of audiences, ultimately, the demise of the Apple Newton MessagePad came from faulty technologies and broken promises. Apple’s main selling point was Newton’s ability to transform handwritten text to computer text, but the early models of the MessagePad failed to do this accurately. The media quickly caught on to this failed attempt, and numerous publications made fun of the faulty technology present in the MessagePad. As shown in Figure 3, publications, such as the Baltimore Sun, wrote about their experience when trying out this defective technology.
In this article, the writer pokes fun at the outputs that the MessagePad comes up with when its user writes simple phrases (Lewis, 1993). Through his experience with the Newton MessagePad, the author depicts the picture of a complete failure on Apple’s part to deliver on their promises (Lewis, 1993). Many articles, alongside this one, were published within the first few months of Newton’s release, which gave it a bad reputation very early on. In 1998, just five years after its release, the Newton MessagePad was discontinued by Steve Jobs. While the Apple Newton MessagePad faced an early death due to its faulty technology and broken promises, the idea of the personal digital assistant still lives with us today, through devices such as smartphones and tablets.
References
Apple Newton Advertisement. (n.d.). Retrieved August 03, 2020, from http://cargocollective.com/finder/Apple-Newton-Advertisement
Gay, P. D. (1997). Doing cultural studies: The story of the Sony Walkman. London: Sage, in association with The Open University.
Gitelman, L., & Pingree, G. (2003). What’s New About New Media. MIT Press.
Honan, M. (2013, August 05). Remembering the Apple Newton’s Prophetic Failure and Lasting Impact. Retrieved July 17, 2020, from https://www.wired.com/2013/08/remembering-the-apple-newtons-prophetic-failure-and-lasting-ideals/
Lewis, P. H. (1993, September 27). Apple’s Newton Message Pad: For cocktail parties only? The Baltimore Sun, p. 16C.
Manovich, L. (2001). The language of new media. Cambridge, MA, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
