I wanted to immediately shout, "now THIS is something SJ would be rolling in his grave over." However, in the mid 2000s he was a big believer in switching to Intel and even though I found it hard to believe a company that pushed PowerPC for so long was suddenly so willing to join "the dark side" at the time.
His Intel switch bet played off for Apple and I imagine this bet by Tim Cook will also play out for them. I look forward to having many more years of iOS work and many more years of Xcode and iOS SDK improvements :-). Stability and security will be at the top of the lists :-D
> Thanks to HP's distribution network, the iPod+HP was sold in retailers where Apple did not have any presence at the time, which included Wal-Mart, RadioShack, and Office Depot. Many of these retailers now sell Apple iPods.
In hindsight, the subsequent sales explosion makes it look unnecessary [2]
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple his laptop of choice was an IBM Thinkpad (560E). In fact, "he delivered it to Apple’s designers as a model of where the PowerBook line needed to go."
"In 1989, IBM signed a deal with NeXT to license NeXTstep to run on Big Blue's RISC chip. But Jobs now says that while a long-term relationship with IBM will move forward, "it's no secret that the project to put NeXT software on the IBM RS/6000 has broken down."
His Intel switch bet played off for Apple and I imagine this bet by Tim Cook will also play out for them. I look forward to having many more years of iOS work and many more years of Xcode and iOS SDK improvements :-). Stability and security will be at the top of the lists :-D