When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, one of the first things he did was radically slash the number of different products Apple was making and selling. His famous four quadrants that categorised Apple’s products into desktop and laptop, professional and consumer meant that a number of products were ditched. And the most popular of those was the Apple MessagePad running the Newton OS. The deft execution of that product was announced 25 years ago.
Apple’s product rationalisation made sense at the time. The company was haemorrhaging money and was close to extinction. The company-saving iPod was still four years away and the iPhone cash cow wasn’t even a figment of most people’s imagination. Apple’s handheld business was completely in the MessagePad/Newton court and Apple decided to quit the mobile device game.
That left thousands of developers suddenly ‘orphaned’ and many companies dead in the water. Newton development was a lucrative business with many industries investing in the devices and creating bespoke apps for security, healthcare and myriad other use-cases. Just as iOS and iPadOS created an entire ecosystem of developers, Newton was doing the same. And those companies and developers were sent askew, with the offer of free access to Apple’s Mac developer program as compensation.
The question I’m left with is “What if Apple didn’t ditch the Newton OS?’. Could the development of the iPad or iPhone have happened faster? Or would it have never happened because the architectural limitations of that platform would have led to a development dead end?
History tells us that Apple made the right decision. If Apple had continued to invest time, effort and its scant-at-the-time resources, it may not have had the capacity to create the first iPod. And if that had not happened, it’s possible that the resources required to develop the iPhone and all the products that came after it would not have been available.
The death of the MessagePad, its lesser known companion the eMate, and the Newton OS seemed like a very extreme measure at the time. But perhaps that extreme act of pruning is what let the Apple tree flourish later.
I still have a working MessagePad and eMate in the cupboard. I doubt they’ll even be truly useful again. But they are a stark reminder of Apple’s philosophy of being prepared to let go of something, even if it’s popular, in order to move on and do something better.
Anthony is the founder of Australian Apple News. He is a long-time Apple user and former editor of Australian Macworld. He has contributed to many technology magazines and newspapers as well as appearing regularly on radio and occasionally on TV.