20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT
&gt;&gt; What came out of this deal not only saved Apple and the Mac, but made the iPhone, iPad and more possible as well.<p>What prevents Apple from making the iPhone and iPad? They could have bought Palm, QNX, did something based on Linux...<p>What was the key? BSD? Objective-C? I don&#x27;t see those being that important.<p>The one thing NeXT did enable them to do was the PowerPC to Intel switch.