Jobs was running NeXT during the development of the Newton. Steve Jobs resigned from Apple in late 1985 and became interim CEO in September 1997. He discontinued the Newton project in March 1998 to refocus the company toward profitability again.
Well color me schooled. Still, I've always had the impression from interviews (just an impression mind you), that it was a dream of his to have a working tablet, but the tech wasn't there. He was thinking about it is the sense I got, but I could be off.
