6 of Apple’s Weirdest Partnerships to Date

Apple, as one of the world’s largest and most outspoken tech companies, partners with a lot of other firms, artists, government entities and nonprofits. Some of the partnerships are sound and logical, while others seem just a bit off.

Even the partnership with Goldman Sachs on the Apple Card starts to make a strange sort of sense when you think about it (specifically, Apple's push toward Services). But other Apple partnerships, like the ones on this list, are still undoubtedly weird to this day. Continue reading to browse 6 of the Weirdest Apple Partnerships to Date.

United Airlines

What do Apple and airlines have in common? At this point, not much. But Apple is actually currently “in talks” with United Airlines to discuss upgrading one of the airline’s terminals in California. Though it’s not clear what the deal could entail, it is kind of a weird partnership.

When you start realizing United’s position, the partnership may make a bit more sense. The terminal in question is United’s at San Francisco International Airport. And Apple itself is known to be one of United’s biggest customers due in no small part to all of the staff flying out of the Bay Area on a daily basis.

Soy Sauce Factory

You can probably imagine Apple teaming up with media personalities, activists, large firms or other tech companies. You probably wouldn’t expect Apple to partner with a soy sauce factory. And yet, according to a Bloomberg article from earlier this year, that exact partnership is in the works.

A source within the soy sauce brewery, Wan Ja Shan, said that Apple would be working with the company to develop and install solar arrays for the brewery’s rooftop. It is not clear why Apple is doing this, but it’s likely tied to a renewable energy program that would kick off with “projects from Apple in Singapore and Taiwan.”

U2

Back in 2004, a U2 song called “Vertigo” appeared in what is now considered an iconic iPod commercial. Fast forward a decade and Apple actually announced a partnership with the Irish rock band to produce an entire album, Songs of Innocence, that would be offered for free to all iTunes users.

When the album launched in September 2014, thousands of iTunes users woke up to find that it had been automatically downloaded to their library. The fallout for the intrusion was pretty brutal. And it even lead U2 front Bono to issue an apology for the marketing stunt.

Google

Apple and Google, at first glance, seem to be on completely opposite sides of the spectrum when it comes to digital privacy. Apple largely respects and even protects its users’ privacy. Google, while in the midst of changing its image, makes money from harvesting user data.

That’s why it’s actually pretty weird that Google is the default search engine on iOS. Of course, if you’re familiar with the court case between Oracle and Google, you may know why. Google apparently pays Apple a lot of money to be the default search engine. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a weird privacy “gap” in Apple’s software.

Samsung

Although not technically “partners,” the relationship between Apple and Samsung is certainly an interesting one. As smartphone makers, Apple and Samsung are bitter rivals who are always trying to outdo each other. But their relationship gets a bit trickier than that.

Samsung is Apple’s largest supplier of OLED displays panels for its iPhones. And the Cupertino tech giant is actually Samsung’s biggest external customer. While Apple is trying to tap other display makers to compete with Samsung, it’s probable that the two companies rely on each other a lot more than you might expect.

Oprah

Back in March, Apple unveiled one of its most high-profile partnerships to date: Oprah. Yes, that Oprah. And while it appeared that the partnership was purely based on producing content for Apple’s upcoming TV+ subscription service, it’s clear that Oprah is taking the partnership very seriously.

Oprah, in fact, left 60 Minutes to work with the Cupertino tech giant and is largely planning on putting “all” of her energy toward Apple TV+. It may make sense based on Apple's increasing push toward services. But if you would have predicted an Apple and Oprah partnership to this degree a year ago, most people would probably think the idea was weird.