Hey everyone, it's Colin. How's it goin'?
In the 1990s, Apple's line of Mac laptops, the PowerBook series, was fairly well-known.
But there was another laptop the company made, and it wasn't a Mac.
This time, let's take a look at the Apple eMate 300.
[♪ Music - Intro ♪]
In 1993, Apple launched Newton, its series of personal digital assistants.
By 1997, several models had come and gone, all in a handheld form factor.
On March 7th of that year, the company released the eMate 300,
it's first, *and only,* Newton-based laptop.
It featured a 480x320 pixel grayscale screen, with
green electroluminescent backlight,
just like the handheld MessagePad 2000.
But the display was larger at 6.8 inches,
and set up in a landscape orientation.
With its Mac PowerBook series, Apple had pioneered the concept
of putting a laptop's keyboard close to the display,
with the pointing device and wrist rest in front.
But the eMate reversed this, primarily because the pointing device wasn't a trackball or touchpad,
but rather, a stylus, which was stored above the keyboard.
Instead of a Motorola or IBM processor like Macs used, the eMate had
a 2500 megahertz ARM710a chip,
along with one megabyte of RAM and two megabytes of flash memory for storing files.
There was a PCMCIA card slot for expansion,
along with a headphone jack.
Around back was an infrared transciever for wirelessly transferring files with other units.
And on the left side, there were a pair of serial ports for interfacing with computers and accessories.
The built-in rechargeable battery was rated for 24 hours of use,
but wasn't easily replaceable.
That was partly due to the eMate's industrial design,
which was vastly different than any other product Apple had made.
It featured lots of compound curves, far from the boxy shape that PowerBooks took.
It used green, translucent plastic that let you vaguely see some of the components inside.
There was a large handle at the back to make it easy to carry,
and the laptop overall felt sturdy and rugged.
But it was also fairly small,
with the keyboard being only about 85% the size of a normal one.
And that's because the eMate's primary users weren't adults, but rather children.
It was sold only to the education market,
with the idea being that schools would order 'em by the dozens or hundreds,
and assign 'em to students.
The eMate software had a number of programs built-in,
including drawing and word processing tools.
Apple envisioned a digital classroom, where students could type up their homework on an eMate,
then wirelessly transfer it to their teacher's laptop.
The initial sales price of about $800 US was a good deal cheaper than full-fledged laptops of that era..
And Apple said that if eMate proved successful in schools,
it would consider selling it to consumers.
And indeed, by October 1997, Apple had set up a police department in Florida with eMates and Newton MessagePads
to try out,
with the hopes that it would enhance productivity and streamline paperwork.
But Apple was in rough shape financially.
Steve Jobs had returned to the company in July 1997 as CEO
and found it was just months away from bankruptcy,
with losses exceeding a billion dollars a year.
Mismanagement by prior executives had seen Apple's sales plummet and costs rise.
The Newton division had been spun off as a subsidiary company,
and it was well-known at the time that Jobs actually hated the project.
But curiously, in September of that year, he replied to an email from a customer with surprising optimism.
Jobs (LGR VO): "The eMate has a bright future -
and it is for this reason that I am pulling it back into Apple - which has the resources to market and sell it much more broadly.
You can imagine that a small spin-off company would not have such a large sales force or marketing budget.
With the appropriate investments in sales and marketing, we hope that the eMate can become a great success."
But that optimistic vision didn't pan out.
Jobs had to narrow Apple's focus and get its finances in line to allow it to survive.
In early 1998, after having been pulled back into Apple,
the Newton project was canceled.
Its entire product line was discontinued,
including the eMate.
Yet the eMate's legacy lived on in other ways, most notably through its design.
The original iMac from mid-1998 took on a number of cues from it,
including a friendly, rounded shape and the use of colorful, translucent plastic.
And indeed, this design language spread to other Apple products,
such as the Power Mac G3 tower,
and iBook laptop.
Apple never released sales numbers for the machine,
but used ones do come up for sale online fairly frequently.
During its time, it never made it into the hands of general consumers,
and even now, not that many people have even heard of it.
But the eMate 300 provided inspiration for one of Apple's most iconic products,
which itself helped turned the company's fortunes around.
One can only guess how things would have gone if it weren't for the little Apple laptop that wasn't a Mac.
If you like the video, I'd appreciate a thumbs-up and be sure to subscribe.
You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at thisdoesnotcomp, and as always, thanks for watching.