I think the comments are a bit negative in this thread, however, Newton has nothing to do with Apple now. Or the last decade. Or the last 20 years. It's touching on 30+ years post launch now. Pointing at an "early idea" from 1993, is more the exception to the rule.

Products such as the ipod and then the iphone, were as the parent poster describes. Both ipod like devices, and the iphone were successors to other devices already on the market. It was how they were presented, packaged, and tailored that made them special and unique. Yet the launch of these devices are also in the range of two decades ago.

In the tech world, a few years is a long time let alone 20 or 30 years.

I'd say Apple is barely innovative now, and further, their 'early ideas' are long, long, long gone.

This is why it's such a shame that their products aren't as polished as they used to be. They still have a very strong capacity to do this, and I wish they would. It's a great market, and it's what a lot of people want. Take what's already on the market, as Jobs did with the iphone, or the ipod, and make it ... well, very nice to use.

Yet they seem to be stumbling here a bit, which is a shame.