William Gallagher
Marking the 30th anniversary month of the launch of Apple's Newton MessagePad, the full, feature length "Love Notes to Newton" has been released on YouTube for free.
The Newton MessagePad range began to huge fanfare in August 1993, and quite some criticism, too. But as well as being a harbinger of all that was to come with the iPhone and iPad, the Newton also earned itself an army of fans who adore it to this day.
In 2018, several of them produced a first-class feature-length documentary called "Love Notes to Newton." It's simultaneously a celebration of the impact of this handheld device, and a recounting of what went so right — and what went so wrong.
Produced as a result of a crowdfunding campaign, it was released for sale over Vimeo. Five years later, and to celebrate three decades since the Newton launched, the whole documentary is now available to watch for free on YouTube.
AppleInsider Staff
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
Christine McKee
4 Comments
I well remember back in the day, about 2 years after Newton was introduced. My employer at the time, an Apple SMB VAR, did a recycling event, where we invited our clients to have their outdated and out of use equipment responsibly recycled, instead of going to landfills. One medical practice brought in about 25 Newtons. Others brought in more. By the end of the day, we had about 50 of them or so, along with dozens of expansion cards. We also took in LaserWriters, displays, assorted Macs, and a complete NextCube, with screen, all manuals and discs. Needless to say, we didn't give that one to the recyclers! We sold it on eBay for about $2,500 if memory serves. We also got an Anniversary Mac, which the owner kept for his collection.
I bought a 1st generation Newton, back in the Palm Pilot era and honorable mention to Day-Timer...
I was a first gen adopter too. There was an actual Newton Store in Westwood, California near UCLA where I bought mine, along with a game or two. Their sign was a neon version of the Newton lightbulb logo. This was long before Apple Stores, bu I had the impression that it was official nonetheless. Was fun to play with, but ahead of its time, so ended up in a drawer after a few months. Found it a few years ago. Had neglected to take the battery out so leakage had caused some damage. But careful cleaning and a recharge brought it back to life. Sold it at a garage sale.
Oh I'm feeling so old I remember when the Newton came out and was very interested in them and wanted one. Lucky for me money was tight at the time and like most things Apple expensive. I was getting ready to be relocated across the country for a new job with a couple others from where I worked. After the relo' one of the people took his bonus and got a Newton and developer kit so I got to checkout it out. I quickly lost interest it was way bigger than I thought it would be not that handy size of a Palm Pilot that it was supposed to be a competitor of. It did have a really interesting kind of card based app, but luckily Apple after sales of Newton were bad it ported the app to the Mac. The Newton died pretty fast and my friend now had a quite a bit of money and programming time invested in the Newton so he was really upset. One of the others we worked with at the new location had become quite a Palm Pilot programmer and was making good money on the side writing games and later on bigger app's for the Palm.
So yes I remember the Newton all too well.