It’s been almost two decades since Apple shuttered its Newton platform, which included handwriting recognition support for personal digital assistants. But it’s surprising to see how well the long-forgotten product line has stood the test of time, if not the test of consumer demand.
In this fun little video, we see a contemporary iPhone type the same sentence as a Newton-era MessagePad 2000, with which users could jot down notes using a stylus. The Newton isn’t so far behind the iPhone, which is a tribute to its 28-year-old software. Of course, while Newton was cool, it had its downsides.
In the original product announcement, Apple proudly proclaimed that “this small wonder weighs under a pound and a half!” And you had to hook it up to your computer manually to transfer information between it and your computer. Still, it’s cool to see how even as far back as the mid-1990s, the groundwork for the iPhone was already being laid.
