In 1996 AOL considered buying Apple.

What we know as America Online was based on AppleLink Personal Edition which was a joint project of Apple and Quantum Computer Services (which was run by Steve Case).

By the late 1980s, their relationship foundered and AppleLink Personal Edition was ported to Windows as PCLink and eventually the software and community was re-branded as America Online. Eventually, Quantum Computer Services changed their name to America Online.

America Online grew remarkably, so around 1994, Apple approached them to host eWorld which was to be a re-branded version of America Online with a custom UI and with billing handled by Apple.

eWorld failed due to a combination of high prices with little differentiation from AOL, poor marketing by Apple, and the Spindler era budget constraints, but even in the unlikely event that it had succeeded the Internet was beginning to gain in popularity so eWorld would have died off not long after it actually did.