Hacker News Reader

Apple does not allow renting Macs less than 24 hours.

The page specifies the price is hourly and doesn't seem to list that restriction. Could you please link to where it is specified?

Edit: I don't think you're right. I've checked the Scaleway console and it appears the minimum unit of billing for this is one hour. I'd check, but they're out of stock.

Second edit: I missed the part where it says 24 hour minimum period on the instance setup page:

"As required by Apple License, you must keep this instance at least 24 hours. You will be able to delete it only after 24 hours."

Here[1] is the license for BigSur. The relevant section is 3.A.(ii). This clause was added for BigSur so I _think_ that if you're leasing a VPS with macOS Catalina or older you can legally rent it for less than 24 hours.

[1] https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macOSBigSur.pdf

Edit: It seems that before BigSur the legallity of subleasing macOS was a "gray area". I guess as long as it doesn't hurt Apple they didn't come after you.

Catalina is not available for M1, though.

Makes me wonder how they draw the line between renting a Mac and providing a service which happens to run on a Mac. I guess I know the answer (arbitrarily).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com