If you ever knew anyone who owned an Apple Newton, you also knew someone who loved their Apple Newton. I am such a person. I did not have one of the first Newtons. I came on board with a used 120, and bought a used 2100 when I could.

The Newton was not really a pocketable device. But compared to “portable” computers of its day, it was ultra small and ultra light. Incredibly, it could not only word process, sketch and allow you to play games, but could email and even FAX! I had a program that would allow me to draw a line on the calendar, then use the stylus to write a number, say 4, and the built in infra-red would beam a message to my VCR to record channel four during the day and hour that I drew the line.

Why didn’t the Newton make it? Most people will say because it was “Steved” — and indeed it was one of the Apple projects that Steve Jobs cancelled to simplify Apple’s lines when he returned to the company, before creating the iMac and iPod. But it could have been — maybe should have — been a run-away success before Steve’s return.

And so I ask again: Why didn’t the Newton make it?

I think you’re not going to like the answer. Because it was two things at once when it was released: 1) it was revolutionary; and 2) it was good, but flawed.

Specifically, it was the handwriting recognition. If you were interested in things like handwriting recognition, if you were any kind of gadget freak at all, the thing was absolutely, mind-blowingly amazing. You simply could not ask for better recognition in a box so small and so inexpensive. It paid to learn the Newton’s favourite handwriting style, but the software also learned somewhat to adapt to your handwriting. The 2100 was astonishingly good at it.

But the Newton’s fate was sealed before the 2000 series came out. The cartoonist who wrote and drew one of the most popular comic strips of the day, Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury, decided to make fun of techies and their toys and gave one of his characters a Newton. And the nation laughed as the character would write phrases like “Catching on?” and the handwriting recognition would change it to “egg freckles”. Never mind that the handwriting recognition would get much better. The whole product line was tarred and feathered by the release version’s flaws, even though anyone who knew anything about recognition was impressed.

You and I have suffered through iterations of spell-checkers that are almost as flawed. But the Newton was a device you had to choose rather than a service on a machine you had. Spell-check survives, the Newton did not. Instead, the Palm Pilot won the day. It was unsophisticated and had no handwriting recognition. You learned its stenographic system or you didn’t write. It was a much lesser technology, and required lower expectations, but once you lowered your expectations, it met those expectations.

What might have happened if the Newton 100-series had only been released to early adopter TREGs who knew enough about gadgets to be impressed by the thing despite its quirks? What might have happened if the product line hadn’t hit general release until the device could meet the high expectations it generated? We may never know… or we might guess when we see the adoption of a years-better TextBlade.

Because this is the problem WayTools perceive — to be 1) revolutionary and 2) generally accepted, it is not enough that a device is technologically light-years ahead of anything else, or that it’s small, light, or ingenious. Neither does it need to be perfect. But it needs to fulfil the expectations that it creates in the minds of the very people who least understand why it’s special.

I have thought that it was ready for General Release for a long time. But I understand Mark’s caution. He sure was right about how to build a keyboard, maybe he’s worth listening to about when to release it.