Yep. You left out the part where Palm ate Apple's lunch for 15 years, to the point that Apple was forced to abandon the Newton platform in order to compete. Spot-on recounting otherwise though.
They cancelled Newton in order to compete? I don't understand the assertion.
Newton was cancelled by Jobs in 1997 for a number of reasons, but mainly because Apple had lost focus and was running out of money. Jobs cleaned house and only kept the products that could bring in larger profits more quickly.
Palm pilots were sold as complementary products to Macs or PCs and synced well with either one. I don't understand how that is eating Apple's lunch for 15 years since Apple was not shipping a competing product. Does Boeing eat Apple's lunch since Apple doesn't sell any airplanes?
Apple released iPod in 2001, again, not a competitor to Palm but it did provide a means for Apple to learn how to build handheld devices in very high volumes. Ignoring the Motorola ROKR, when Apple finally entered the smartphone market in 2007, Palm began to wither away.
The Newton platform was never competitive. The only group that forced the Newton to shut down was Apple. Then Apple didn't compete at all in the PDA space. Palm had a better PDA than Apple and Ford in 2000, because neither company competed in that space.
Meanwhile the iPhone sells more units in a year than Palm sold units in its lifetime.
Meta's unit sales are not an unassailable moat just like Palm's unit sales weren't a moat. Apple setting low initial projections is also not necessarily indicative of them not taking the market seriously or not having faith in the product.
Hopefully Meta learned the lessons of Palm, RIM, and the other smartphone also-rans and focuses on making their platform better. Apple's not unstoppable. There's also likely plenty of market for VR/AR at all price points. There's certainly room for that market to grow if the offerings are compelling.