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Sun once tried to merge with Apple That would have been nice.

by gonzo 4y ago

pavlov 4y ago
That would have been instead of the NeXT merger which brought Jobs to Apple. It seems likely a Sun-Apple would have ended up with both companies destroyed, and Steve Jobs might have spent the early 2000s hawking enterprise web dev software like he was doing at NeXT in 1995.
- chii 4y ago
  What a different world that would've been! I wonder which company would've made the trailblazing iphone in this alternate reality world...
  - macintux 4y ago
    My supposition has been that, absent Apple to throw their weight behind the iPhone, someone would have created a pure touchscreen device (Android had one such concept under development IIRC) but it would have failed because it would have been just one phone among many, gathering dust at retail stores. Apple bet the farm on one phone, had the built-in fan base to leverage, and the resources to make it work well from day one.
    - agumonkey 4y ago
      the iphone was also symbiotic outgrowth of the massive ipod success
      - hungryforcodes 4y ago
        Though it was a factor -- it's real success was that it was OS X in a tiny phone -- basically a portable Mac with totally wireless connectivity. For many applications you could simply leave your laptop at home and walk on the bus and go on with your day. Steve Jobs even said at its launch that the iPhone rans OS X and ran "desktop class applications". This with it's multi-touch full screen keyboard and GUI integration meant that people could interact with it much more naturally than any phone in the past. Even my mother could use it, which is remarkable, considering how many cell phones I gave her that she couldn't use. I guarantee you that the most used features from day one of the iPhone launch were: Safari, Google Maps, and YouTube, with the Music app being simple a "nice to have".
  - nequo 4y ago
    Probably Google with Android. They were working on it at roughly the same time as Apple but released it later. This interview with Chet Haase on the CoRecursive podcast is an interesting account of those years: https://corecursive.com/android-with-chet-haase/ https://corecursive.com/android-with-chet-haase/ So today Android might have a larger market share. Maybe the Windows Phone would still be a thing.
SanjayMehta 4y ago
The joke was the combined company would be called Snapple.

Sun once tried to merge with Apple That would have been nice.

by gonzo 4y ago

Sun once tried to merge with Apple That would have been nice.

That would have been instead of the NeXT merger which brought Jobs to Apple. It seems likely a Sun-Apple would have ended up with both companies destroyed, and Steve Jobs might have spent the early 2000s hawking enterprise web dev software like he was doing at NeXT in 1995.

chii 4y ago
What a different world that would've been! I wonder which company would've made the trailblazing iphone in this alternate reality world...
- macintux 4y ago
  My supposition has been that, absent Apple to throw their weight behind the iPhone, someone would have created a pure touchscreen device (Android had one such concept under development IIRC) but it would have failed because it would have been just one phone among many, gathering dust at retail stores. Apple bet the farm on one phone, had the built-in fan base to leverage, and the resources to make it work well from day one.
  - agumonkey 4y ago
    the iphone was also symbiotic outgrowth of the massive ipod success
    - hungryforcodes 4y ago
      Though it was a factor -- it's real success was that it was OS X in a tiny phone -- basically a portable Mac with totally wireless connectivity. For many applications you could simply leave your laptop at home and walk on the bus and go on with your day. Steve Jobs even said at its launch that the iPhone rans OS X and ran "desktop class applications". This with it's multi-touch full screen keyboard and GUI integration meant that people could interact with it much more naturally than any phone in the past. Even my mother could use it, which is remarkable, considering how many cell phones I gave her that she couldn't use. I guarantee you that the most used features from day one of the iPhone launch were: Safari, Google Maps, and YouTube, with the Music app being simple a "nice to have".
- nequo 4y ago
  Probably Google with Android. They were working on it at roughly the same time as Apple but released it later. This interview with Chet Haase on the CoRecursive podcast is an interesting account of those years: https://corecursive.com/android-with-chet-haase/ https://corecursive.com/android-with-chet-haase/ So today Android might have a larger market share. Maybe the Windows Phone would still be a thing.

SanjayMehta 4y ago

The joke was the combined company would be called Snapple.