Apple Rehires a Developer of Its Newton Tablet

By Brad Stone

Michael Tchao

Michael Tchao

If you were gearing up to launch a tablet computer — and these days, who isn’t? — who would you hire to market it? One obvious candidate would be Michael Tchao, one of the original developers of Apple‘s groundbreaking but failed Newton personal digital assistant.

Mr. Tchao joined Apple on Monday as vice president of product marketing, Steve Dowling, an Apple spokesman, confirmed. He will report to Phil Schiller, a senior vice president. Mr. Tchao is returning to his old Cupertino stomping grounds after an absence of 15 years.

During that time, he has had a high-profile career, most recently as the general manager of Nike Techlab, the company’s technology arm, which designed armbands and sneakers that integrate with the iPod.

It is not clear what his new duties at Apple will entail; Apple would not comment further on the matter, and Mr. Tchao did not immediately respond to a phone message. But identifying a market for the much-rumored Apple tablet could certainly be among them. Mr. Tchao gets the credit (or perhaps the blame) for convincing John Sculley, Apple’s former chief executive, to integrate the company’s handwriting-recognition technology into a consumer device.

“He’s got the scars and the great ideas” about tablet computing, said another former Apple employee who worked with Mr. Tchao. He did not want to be named because the hiring was not yet public.

Comments are no longer being accepted.

AppDev September 28, 2009 · 6:53 pm

There is nothing much a marketing person can do for tablet computers. Their original attraction was promise of handwriting recognition. The best any really do is far short of professional requirements, which is why you no longer hear tablets touted for medical records.

They will do for quick capsules of photos or other informal tasks, but voice recording is often more useful. To get written text, speech recognition has roughly the same, relatively poor accuracy.

These demanding pattern-recognition problems now have more than 40-year histories of effort, so that substantial improvements will be rare.

Joe Levi September 28, 2009 · 7:20 pm

“groundbreaking but failed Newton personal digital assistant.”? What? Really? It didn’t “fail” at all! It was light-years ahead of Palm, Windows Mobile wasn’t even around at the time…. It didn’t FAIL, Steve Jobs KILLED it in cold blood.

Where’s your research department?

– //www.JoeLevi.com

Tom September 28, 2009 · 7:29 pm

Doesn’t necessarily mean tablet – could easily be helping Nike+ work, seeing the HRM or other work could be done with iPhone and Touch and iPod integration.
Accessories is a big market, and sports as well. There have been previous rumors about Apple looking to develop it further, maybe this is it? Seems it’d help if the Nike knowledge he knows is allowed to be shared.

Brooks September 28, 2009 · 8:54 pm

@2: I think they meant “failed” in the sense of “had negative ROI.” Blame can be debated, but the bottom line is that the Newton was a market failure (even if it was a technically brilliant device).

Charles September 28, 2009 · 10:23 pm

Great news, but I’m still using my Newton 2100 until I can get a good look at this new machine, and see if it is any good. If it isn’t “actually” vaporware, that is…

Blake Southwood September 28, 2009 · 10:26 pm

Bring back the Newton. It was better then the iPhone.

Jake September 28, 2009 · 10:41 pm

Newton team went off and created Palm,,,handspring,,,etc. Don’t forget the ARM processor as we know it today came out of the Newton development process as well. Apple took over half of ARM and added their SIMD technology, similar to what the PPC G4> had among other things.

Michael September 28, 2009 · 11:29 pm

Apple could pay the salary just on the free PR they are getting from the hire of this non-executive. When Apple does produce a new device, it will be neither a ‘tablet’ nor a Newton. If you study the recent iPhone SDK changes, you can see it will be an iSomething and create a new category of devices. Apple is all about creating new markets, not retreading old ones.

Dan September 29, 2009 · 12:27 am

I agree with Joe. The Newton was ahead of it’s time. The first few versions had the famous issues that gave it the bad rep, but once the software was perfected it was actually very accurate and easier to write on than most anything in use today. The difference in Apple today is that Steve Jobs won’t release it unless the software is great, or really close to great.

What I will disagree is that Steve Jobs killed it in cold blood. At the time it had to go. Even though the product was sound, it couldn’t overcome the bad reputation. Apple was bleeding and needed to focus on what was working. Apple was able to sell the handwriting technology for $600 million, which help to keep the company alive. In this way the Newton was a success.

Now I hope some of the Newton rubs off on the new tablet, at least when that tablet is ready to be released. Take your time Apple.

Beaver September 29, 2009 · 1:33 am

I second Joe Levi and would go even further: The Newton is yet to be surpassed. It was a fully featured, fully autonomous ultramobile computer. Incredibly ergonomic with excellent GUI, all in great hardware.

It did not fail, it was killed.

Ian Mikutel September 29, 2009 · 2:55 am

1. I wonder if this will hurt Nike stock at all, they report earnings Wednesday.

2. While tablet talk is tempting, Tom makes a great point about how large the sports market is, and how much Apple could expand in that direction.

3. All signs point to tablet, but will Apple take the bait?

– //IanMikutel.com

dayib atto September 29, 2009 · 3:17 am

This is about the so-called e-Readers, as always Apple will insanely redefine this emerging technology, make it cool and call it simply an iTablet.

Peter Farago September 29, 2009 · 8:03 am

MIke is a supremely gifted individual – his brilliant track record on a variety of Apple projects are well known to the development community. Good choice bringing him back. He will do well in this new climate.

justfine September 29, 2009 · 8:15 am

“To get written text, speech recognition has roughly the same, relatively poor accuracy.”

David Pogue, I think, would disagree. He’s a Voice Recognition prophet and a very convincing on at that.

veggiedude September 29, 2009 · 8:50 am

The Newton 2.0 won Best of Comdex ’95, beating out that other operating system – Windows 95.

Scott September 29, 2009 · 9:40 am

You are overlooking the fact that he comes back to Apple from Nike. This is all about a Apple designed shoe.
Think about a sport shoe designed by Apple. No laces, no tongue, and can be worn on either foot. A shoe that improves your posture, moves you faster with out tiring you out. But you can only wear Apple socks with it, and you can only buy it only at Sears.

mhartt September 29, 2009 · 10:30 am

I think it’s far more likely that Mr. Tchao’s return to Apple is prompted by his recent experience at Nike. Growing the iPod/iPhone ecosystem is no doubt a priority for Apple and products such as the Nike+ are perceived as high-value successes in this market. Mr. Tchao would certainly be a great asset in that effort.

His 15-year-old Newton experience probably provides a more comfortable return to the Apple’s culture — for both he and Apple — but it is most likely not his current prime value.

Dan Reiss September 29, 2009 · 10:50 am

Just an added observation – the Newton is NOT DEAD. There is a vibrant development community that has continuously updated the device and the software.

In fact I have seen a few Newtons in the hands of Apple employees on the Cupertino campus – but that was some time ago. They used to use them at MacWorld events for registration checks, room admittance etc. – scanning optical bar codes.

Caco Potoso September 29, 2009 · 11:32 am

My desires for an iTablet from Apple:

1) Make it a real computer (not a super itouch, but a real OS X machine).

2) Make it open like a computer (i.e. I can load any software I want).

3) Good for media playing (likely will be).

4) Good USB connectivity (at least 2 ports). Accept USB drives, external CD/DVDs, keyboards and mice, printers, etc.

5) Bluetooth with a good setup (stereo headsets, support for keyboards and mice, etc).

6) Option to have a real HD (i.e. 300 GB) rather than those silly 16 GB flash drives some netbooks come with.

7) Good battery life!

I will buy it :-)
Digg

Shaun Johnston September 29, 2009 · 1:31 pm

My principal computer, that I use both at home and at work, is a MotionComputing tablet. The handwriting recognition is not great but I write books on it. The main benefit is comfort, being able to write with a pen while reclining in an easy chair. It’s slower than typing, but I can write for longer periods of time, so I seem to come out ahead.

Stephen Andrus September 29, 2009 · 2:54 pm

The Newton was KILLED because it FAILED. it couldn’t read handwriting for crap. I remember inputting the name Fred and it returning Fired.

Luis September 29, 2009 · 5:28 pm

Speech recognition (voice recognition) is getting his foot in high profile products. Apple deposite several patents in speech recognition, user interface and other related technologies.
This is the clear path for the next years to come.

ASR is a language oriented technology. It will work only for languages with vast mounts of resources (speech databases, text databases). American English is the most found language for speech recognition, but other Latin languages such as Brazilian Portuguese have some companies working with. You need at least 400 hours of speech database for building a commercial application and each sentence spoken has 5 seconds!!!

Luis
//www.asrlabs.com
//www.asrlabs.com.br

Richard September 29, 2009 · 8:12 pm

In this photo he is apparently taking his oath of fealty to Steve — or, more specifically, to Steve’s telepresence image on a 50 foot video image, which is the way Steve prefers to be revered.

Doug September 29, 2009 · 9:44 pm

@10, @18 Most excellent points. The Newton is alive and well with very large and currently thriving Newton Community – just check on //www.newtontalk.net.The Newton, as opposed to every other similar device, was usable right out of the box with no extra add-ons needed. Internet and fax cable with a PCMCiA fax modem and ethernet card. I owned every version of Newton made and the HWR on my 2100 is near perfect everytime, as if over time it had it’s on TRUE HWR AI. “Keep The Green”

Jon September 30, 2009 · 2:09 pm

I can’t believe people are defending the Newton. I was one of the sorry suckers that actually BOUGHT one. Defend it all you like (in your spare time away from, I can only surmise, Vic 20 user group meetings), but it was a staggering disappointment.