> And since our philosophy is to provide software for our machines free or at minimal cost, you won't be continually paying for access to this growing software library.
A lot of corporate "philosophies" are actually just business models. There have been times between then and now they charged for the OS. They do charge for other software. But largely it's been a good business model for them.
I worked at a place that tested software releases on a VM of every supported operating system, including OS X. We didn't have any Apple hardware, because no one wanted to deal with that, but someone had brought in the chassis of an old Apple computer and the host computer was inside it. We didn't run it by any lawyers or anything, but as far as we could tell, running OS X inside a computer that had all of its guts replaced was entirely within the license requirements.
1. I got tired of waiting 2h for my app to get notarized because
2. I can't sell it on the AppStore in the EU... because
3. the AppStore Connect page gets stuck at their DSA compliance form (it's been 10 days).
And, to add insult to injury, the whole thing could be a PWA, without any compromises in the UX whatsoever.
I misread the title, but I still posted this comment as an example of confirmation bias* in the orange book for posteriority. Time to step away from the computer!
I appreciate that the software and updates are made "free" to me, and it may be their right to disallow "downgrades" and have time-limited windows for redemption. However, as a developer for their platform, it is quite frustrating that these restrictions are at odds with industry practice to guarantee support for older OS versions than current. I cannot purchase a new iPhone, put iOS 18 on it, install my app, and test updating the iPhone to 26. This can have very real negative consequences for the very same shared customers of mine and Apple's.
This anecdote from history feels timely given the recent shift of Apple’s iWork suite (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) from being bundled with Macs to being a freemium subscription.
The post had a different title hours ago. Something along the lines of "it's Apple's philosophy to offer our software for free forever". I didn't followed the link before, so I don't know if it was the same content, but I'm sure the comments are related to the previous title.
I know people are rightly amazed by Woz’s engineering prowess, but it’s fascinating to see Steve’s fingerprints all of Apple I. Look at the product commitments and they’ll ring a bell:
- It’s all in one
- Hassle free to set up
- Something that usually doesn’t work (cassette board) now just works
They rightly identified the hobbyist market (I want to tinker) was actually the smaller market within a larger one. Seems obvious in hindsight. It wasn’t obvious then.
I first saw an Apple I at a Maths Camp in late 1976. It was from the first batch to arrive in Australia. We were all enthralled. We were slightly less enthralled waiting for the floating point libraries to load from cassette tape.
Earlier that year I'd been on a school excursion to Lismore "to see the computer". Richmond River High had got themselves a computer. It was a WANG the size of a washing machine, with a separate mark-sense card reader and a separate RF adapter which connected to a big black and white TV. It was new by the way.
The rate of advance from the WANG to the Apple I was incredible. I'm still intoxicated by it.
The Apple I computers got bought back by Apple for the release of the Apple II. That's why they're so rare, Apple wanted them gone. They were not a user-friendly computer. It booted to the Monitor prompt, and did not include BASIC in the ROM.
41 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 51.2 ms ] thread"APPLE Computer Compagny"
"Palo Atlt"
> And since our philosophy is to provide software for our machines free or at minimal cost, you won't be continually paying for access to this growing software library.
The beginning of the end.
> use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-branded computer at any one time.
Note that you do have to be careful not to stack multiple Macbooks when you do this.
I opened HN just now because:
1. I got tired of waiting 2h for my app to get notarized because
2. I can't sell it on the AppStore in the EU... because
3. the AppStore Connect page gets stuck at their DSA compliance form (it's been 10 days).
And, to add insult to injury, the whole thing could be a PWA, without any compromises in the UX whatsoever.
I misread the title, but I still posted this comment as an example of confirmation bias* in the orange book for posteriority. Time to step away from the computer!
* (sunk cost fallacy)
Well... the apple used to be sweet and has turn pretty sour with the years...
>If Microsoft never bailed Apple out, this wouldn't be on the front page today
>If Apple didn't have the greatest marketing team of all time and nail the ipod commercial, this wouldn't be on the front page today
>If Apple charged competitive prices for the iphone, rather than make it a veblen good, this wouldn't be on the front page today.
If I could only consider how much luck is involved in life, it might make setbacks feel better.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46843037
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/28/apple-updates-keynote-n...
- It’s all in one - Hassle free to set up - Something that usually doesn’t work (cassette board) now just works
They rightly identified the hobbyist market (I want to tinker) was actually the smaller market within a larger one. Seems obvious in hindsight. It wasn’t obvious then.
Earlier that year I'd been on a school excursion to Lismore "to see the computer". Richmond River High had got themselves a computer. It was a WANG the size of a washing machine, with a separate mark-sense card reader and a separate RF adapter which connected to a big black and white TV. It was new by the way.
The rate of advance from the WANG to the Apple I was incredible. I'm still intoxicated by it.