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Comment by pikachu_is_cool | Hacker News Reader

Even if your assumption Objective-C was only relevant after the release of iOS was correct, then Objective-C was still relevant since 2007. That's 7 years.

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Do you think I literally meant 15 minutes? 7 years is nothing.

Check this out. Objective-C wasn't even Apple's first choice.

"Apple CEO Gil Amelio started negotiations to buy Be Inc., but negotiations stalled when Be CEO Jean-Louis Gassée wanted $200 million; Apple was unwilling to offer any more than $125 million. Apple's board of directors decided NeXTSTEP was a better choice and purchased NeXT in 1996 for $429 million, bringing back Apple co-founder Steve Jobs." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS

So you're all using Objective-C because Apple couldn't afford to buy the OS they wanted. Kinda sad!

NeXT was a reverse acquisition. The company known today as "Apple Inc." is essentially the result of NeXT being paid $400 million to acquire Apple.

> So you're all using Objective-C because Apple couldn't afford to buy the OS they wanted. Kinda sad!

In the early Mac OS X days, developers could choose between Objective-C and Java as the Mac OS X main language, the majority went for Objective-C and the JavaBridge was dropped.

It's a language. Get over it.

So Apple is willing to pay $125 million for Be, Gassée wants $200 million, Apple ends up buying NeXT for $429 million (at least $319 million in cash, according to the citations), and your conclusion is that Apple "couldn't afford to buy [Be]"?

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