[signalsignal]

Actually it was the Newton that made Apple loose so much money. It was never profitable with an average annual loss of 1 billion USD. But if it wasn't for that loss, Steve Jobs would never have been requested to be a consultant at Apple and turn himself into the CEO later.

[SeanLuke]

Much of this sounds wrong.

The Newton was hardly a money-maker, but IIRC, Apple invested somewhere north of $500 million over the course of the Newton project, and sold about $150 million in units. Many of its sales were the last models, notably the MP2100, largely because these units had such impressive processors for their time (162MHz StrongARM). That is, the Newton got Steved just when it started picking up.

More importantly, as part of the Newton project, Apple invested $1.5M in ARM, and made some $800M in profit from that investment. That ARM investment and early Newton-driven design is still reaping dividends in Apple's current low-power devices.

[signalsignal]

Fuck you. The Newton was a HUGE(!!!!!!) loser. You are just too fucking lazy to look it up. I was working in the 90's. I remember this and I'm not going to waste my time learning you easy to find information. FUCK OFF AND DO YOUR OWN HOMEWORK.

OT: I wish their was a way to delete my fucking account. This site is a bunch of armchair CTO's who don't know their eye sockets from their assholes.

[gruseom]

More importantly, as part of the Newton project, Apple invested $1.5M in ARM, and made some $800M in profit from that investment.

Wow. That is fascinating.

[ghshephard]

"average annual loss of 1 billion USD."

Citation? This is an interesting factoid, so I googled for about 10 minutes, and couldn't find any numbers on how many total newtons were sold, and how much apple lost on them. Really interested in any supporting data you might have.

[signalsignal]

So you voted down my comment because you couldn't find a citation on Google? First link :-> http://www.edengene.co.uk/article/how-the-world-learnt-from-... using https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&#...

[jsnell]

That link suggests a total loss of about 750 million over 11 years from start of development to discontinuation. That's an order of magnitude less than the 1 billion annual loss you originally claimed.

[ghshephard]

Wasn't me - I actually was really interested in your comment (as I indicated).

The link you provided, btw, states, "Although the exact scale of the Newton losses remains unconfirmed, some sources say that the company sunk a billion dollars into the Newton and recouped only about one quarter of that amount in sales."

"Some Sources" might have merit if that was the Wall Street Journal, or New York Times (though, in both cases, those "sources" might have ulterior motives") - but they aren't useful in this context.

Also, as a later poster indicated, losing $750mm over the lifetime of a multi-year project, is a lot (lot) different than losing $1B/year.

I'm still intrigued, and would love if (anyone) could track down some data on the Newton, and it's losses. Or even how many units it actually sold.