You are correct that compared to expectations, they didn’t sell in the volumes Apple expected but still outsold the the original Apple computer in its first year.

Apple chose to disregard the market research and tried to promote it as a product with mass appeal when it should have focused on vertical market applications.

In the end several hundred thousand were sold.

Officially, the Newton wasn’t “one of the first PDA’s” … it was, and still is, the only true “PDA”. The term “Personal Digital Assistant” was coined by John Sculley in direct reference to the Newton platform’s intelligent, assistive technologies. This is something that no other commercial computing platform has come close to matching, in terms of ease of use or adaptability.

Secondly, I take issue with your statement that the Newton was a “failure”. True, it never achieved the mass-market success of similar, yet differently executed devices such as the Palm Pilot. However, I would argue that the Newton didn’t fail at all. Technologically, it did what the platform set out to do … and did it very well. It was developed and improved over the course of five years, taking advantage of increasingly more powerful hardware as it became available. It certainly achieved a status within the consumer and corporate communities and is currently appreciated as an innovative and still unrivaled (in many aspects) computing platform.

A failure? Hell, no.

A less successful Apple product that was killed just as it was getting some traction? Absolutely.

Last of all, “poor ergonomics” were never a factor in the Newton’s ultimate demise. Yes, it was a larger device compared to a Palm Pilot, but larger does not equate to “poor ergonomics”.

Try doing a bit more research next time and get your facts straight.