[Someone]

I hope they picked that name for the same reason Apple picked it: because all life is built on carbon.

[oneplane]

Or because Carbon as an element is "C" and "C" is also the language the framework was built for.

[Maursault]

Well, Apple was a little clever with Carbon for this reason, because it was a C based API. I'm not sure how you get Carbon from C++.

[tambourine_man]

Also, the UI was called Aqua. So Aqua + Carbon is an interesting metaphor for an OS ecosystem.

[schoen]

Apparently, although it's not likely to occur under most conditions, you can form a monatomic carbon C²⁺ ion by shooting a laser into very high-temperature carbon:

https://sciencetrends.com/the-charge-of-a-carbon-ion/

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4966987

"Up to C⁴⁺ ions are observed."

And I guess you could also write the C²⁺ ion as "C⁺⁺" if you wanted. :-)

[Dylan16807]

That just makes the comparison worse, if it's difficult and unstable and almost immediately sheds the +s.