Every season of Apple TV’s “For All Mankind” begins the same for prop master Jaime Mengual: A meeting with co-creators and showrunners Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert and producer Ben McGinnis to discuss one prop — the Apple Newton.
Apple products and their use in film and TV have long been a source of conversation. Who can carry an iPhone on screen? Are bad guys forced to use nondescript phones and computers so as not to sow chaos with a device bearing Apple’s famous logo? Well, “For All Mankind” asks a different question altogether: Can its characters use a completely forgotten Apple product canceled two decades ago?
For those who didn’t go through a handheld personal assistant phase in the 1990s, the Newton was an early Apple mobile device that used a stylus-controlled touchscreen for digital scheduling and organization. But in a world of PalmPilots and BlackBerrys, it was toppled by flashier competition and discontinued in 1998 — even though it is credited with paving the way for the iPhone. And yet, in the alternate-history timeline that “For All Mankind” has been existing in for five seasons, where the American ambition to explore space never ran out of rocket fuel, the Newton is thriving as the iPhone of its time.
But it doesn’t function exactly like our smartphones. It’s a highly advanced communication tool that bridges those on Earth, Mars, and anywhere in between — but with less addictive qualities.
“Technology in our world is really dictated by the fact that when the internet started, it was not a public domain, and so the rise of social media doesn’t really happen in the ‘For All Mankind’ world,” Mengual tells Variety. “That really changes the personal connection they have to their devices. In our world, it’s really heavily used for communication and characters learning about things through their Newtons.”
Courtesy of Apple
The first Newton to appear in the series in Season 3 came courtesy of some rummaging through eBay, where Mengual found a few real Newtons still in good condition. He gutted the artifacts, gave them a backlight and burned in some graphics. Soon, they also added a mounted camera, giving it video capabilities — something it never had in reality.
“I like to dig through the archives for prototype images of iPhones that never were or things that they tried,” Mengual says. “We do follow the iPhone a little bit, even though our Newton does some things we wish the iPhone could do, but we’re not quite there yet.”
At least we weren’t there in the ’90s when “For All Mankind” gave its Newtons FaceTime-like features and capacitive touch technology. Every choice made for their evolving Newton is discussed with the Apple team, which approves designs for how apps and sounds change season to season. For Mengual specifically, he’s mostly focused on the hardware, and if and where buttons would be located.
In Season 4, the Newton’s expanded design was heavily influenced by the iPad Mini. In Season 5, they scaled it back in size, just as the iPhone did. Mengual tried to build a model from scratch using AMOLED screens, but it didn’t go well and he retreated to housing a real iPhone in an aluminum Newton casing. Their Newtons aren’t sleek or sexy, though. They are practical for their circumstances.
“Just because our technology is advanced doesn’t mean the hardware doesn’t end up being a little bit clunkier or more retro,” he says. “Some of that design motivation was that in the environment of Mars and on the moon, technology needs to be a little bit more rugged.”
Mengual also has to consider the almost certain lack of a Genius Bar in space. “There may not be an Apple repair shop on Mars as close as you might like,” he says, “so things have to last a little bit longer.”