August 3, 1993, Apple introduced the first handheld computer - Newton MessagePad. As part of the Macworld Expro exhibition in Boston, the company, which was then led by Gil Amelio, showed a revolutionary gadget - an electronic organizer with a touch screen and handwritten input. The first version of the device worked on a processor with a modest frequency of 20 MHz, had 4 megabytes of RAM and only 640 kilobytes of permanent storage, and worked on four "little fingers" batteries. In total, up to 1997, 14 models (including several made for third-party companies) were released, the last of which was almost ten times more powerful.

Since the advent of the gadget, Steve Jobs, then in "exile", hated him, as he did not forget to mention in an interview. And the main claim to development was related to the need to use a stylus - a computer pen. After returning to the company, Jobs immediately closed the project:.

"God gave us ten stylus, and there is nothing to invent yet another. If it were not for the critical situation in Apple, I would personally bring this thing to my senses. But I did not trust people who did it. I sensed that the technology was not bad, but the untalented managers fucked it up. Covering the project, I released some good engineers who could work on new mobile devices. Their experience was useful to us when we switched to the iPhone and iPad ».