The Newton is a series of personal digital assistants (PDAs) developed and marketed by Apple Computer, Inc. An early device in the PDA category (the Newton originated the term), it was the first to feature handwriting recognition. Apple started developing the platform in 1987 and shipped the first devices in August 1993. Production officially ended on February 27, 1998. Newton devices ran on a proprietary operating system, Newton OS; examples include Apple's MessagePad series and the eMate 300, and other companies also released devices running on Newton OS. Most Newton devices were based on the ARM 610 RISC processor and all featured handwriting-based input.
The Newton was considered technologically innovative at its debut, but a combination of factors, some of which included its high price and early problems with its handwriting recognition feature, limited its sales. This led to Apple ultimately discontinuing the platform at the direction of Steve Jobs in 1998, a year after his return to the company.