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Apple Gives a Nod to Newton with New 'What is iPad?' Ad

Wednesday May 12, 2010 7:25 pm PDT by Arnold Kim

Apple started airing a new iPad ad tonight called "What is iPad?". The Ad seems to be a departure from their recent ads with a bit of a gruff narrator walking through what the iPad is. However, it struck me as strangely familiar and I realized that Apple had reincarnated one of the original Apple Newton ads called "What is Newton?" from almost 20 years ago:


If Apple keeps up with the theme, we should be seeing a "Who is iPad" ad and "Where is iPad" to mirror Who is Newton and Where is Newton.

The Apple Newton was the first Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) and was released in 1993. The Newton featured handwriting recognition which received a significant amount of bad press on launch. The recognizer improved significantly in the subsequent releases but it was never quite able to shake the bad reputation. The Newton line was discontinued by Steve Jobs himself after his return to Apple. While most people still carry a negative connotation with Apple's Newton, it was an ahead-of-its-time sort of device that had a hardcore fan base in its day.

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