Carbon (API)
Carbon is a discontinued C-based application programming interface (API) developed by Apple for Mac OS X. Introduced to ease the transition from Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9, it enabled developers to port ("carbonize") existing applications to Mac OS X while maintaining compatibility with the classic Mac OS. Carbon complemented Cocoa, the object-oriented API inherited from NeXTSTEP, which became Apple's primary application framework. As developers increasingly adopted Cocoa, particularly following the introduction of iOS, Carbon's role diminished.