NeXTSTEP only became &quot;cross platform&quot; (meaning: ran on x86 hardware) as a desperate alternative to their failing proprietary hardware business. Seeng as how at that point the OS itself was NeXT&#x27;s business, it&#x27;s hard to imagine Jobs supporting software that ran on competing OSes.<p>Even today the only real cross-platform product Apple makes is iTunes, and that only exists so they can sell iPods (and now iPhones) to windows users. Facetime, ApplePay, iBooks... all would be better as cross platform apps, but Apple isn&#x27;t interested because it doesn&#x27;t help them sell more macs&#x2F;iphones.