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Ah, back when Philips was at the forefront of cutting edge innovation.

Now the flag is carried by its spin-off, ASML.

And NXP. Though it would have been nice if Philips would have evolved to be the "European iPhone" company instead of selling lights, shavers and food blenders.

> if Philips would have evolved to be the "European iPhone" company

They've certainly nailed the evil and user-hostile bit of being an iPhone company. From just 2 weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37667266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37594377

Hue is spun out of Philips and is only using the Philips trademark. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signify_N.V.

(Last time I checked, iPhone doesn't _require_ an iCloud account to work, although it still needs to "phone home" to be activated on setup.)

They also license the brand name to other manufacturers, making all kinds of dollar store tat. The first thing that clued me into this was reading the back of a set of airpod-like wireless headphones.

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