CloudMagic is discontinuing its Newton email app on September 25th and refunding subscriptions to users. The company is staying in business, but said it can’t compete against the free email app options from Apple, Microsoft, and Google.
In a blog post on the company website CEO and founder Rohit Nadhani said,
It was a tough business decision. We explored various business models but couldn’t successfully figure out profitability & growth over the long term. It was hard; the market for premium consumer mail apps is not big enough, and it faces stiff competition from high quality free apps from Google, Microsoft, and Apple. We put up a hard and honest fight, but it was not enough to overcome the bundling & platform default advantages enjoyed by the large tech companies.
If you’re currently a Newton user, your auto-renewal has already been cancelled. The company is working with Apple and Google to find the best way to get pro-rated refunds to users for the time left on their subscriptions beyond September 25th. If you were thinking about trying out Newton, don’t bother because you can’t sign up for a subscription any more.
Wait a minute, was this a service for the Apple Newton handheld device which is over 25 years old? Were there really people using this device, and enough of them to keep a business afloat? Or was this just a similarly named service?
It’s just similarly named. Although I would’ve loved an email service like this on my Message Pad all those years ago!