Failing Up

Twenty years ago, Apple introduced the Newton Message Pad, a handheld device that could store a calendar, manage contacts and send a fax. It was supposed to be able to recognize handwriting, meaning that if you took the special stylus and scrawled a note on the surface, the computer would translate your note into your calendar or contacts. And it was a miserable failure.

The article at Wired examines the matter in greater detail, but from what I can tell there were two major reasons the Newton failed -- both of these reasons made it something that returning Apple CEO Steve Jobs hated, and so it was quickly disposed of.

The first reason is that the original handwriting recognition software was not good and by the time the company developed a better one, the Newton was already doomed. The second was that it was developed in 1993 instead of 2013, or even 2003. According to the article, project designers wanted a handheld device that, in essence, freed the computer from the desktop. But that was what PDA devices like the Palm Pilot were doing better, for less money. The extra computing jazz that the Newton had wasn't of much use for someone who wanted to keep contacts handy, keep notes and so on.

But this being 1993, when the idea of a fast internet connection might be something like a 28K modem, there was nothing for that extra computing jazz to do. So Apple killed the Newton, but kept its parts around. Lo and behold, today anyone who uses an iPad or even an iPhone is using some of the technological ideas used in developing the Newton.

Would there be an iPad had there never been a Newton? Probably -- but without the dismal failure of the earlier device, it would have been a lot easier to create an iPad that had some of the same detracting features and hamper the newer machine's ability to be useful and catch on.

So failure is indeed not an option -- it's just that sometimes, it's not an option because it's a necessity.