In 2005, Steve Jobs’ announcement that Apple’s computers would be moving from PowerPC to Intel surprised many. OS X had been living “a secret double life” with Intel for five years, said Jobs, but according to a new report from Japan, that life almost included an even more shocking partner — Sony. Japanese freelance writer Nobuyuki Hayashi, who has covered Apple for over two decades, quotes ex-Sony president Kunitake Ando recalling a 2001 meeting between him and Jobs in Hawaii. After playing a round of golf with other Sony executives, says Ando, “Steve Jobs and another Apple executive were waiting for us at the end of the golf course holding VAIO running Mac OS.” Jobs had shut down the Mac “clone” business years earlier but, according to Ando, admired Sony’s VAIO line so much he was “willing to make an exception.”
Read the full story at The Verge, and read Nobuyuki Hayashi’s full story here.