Pardon if this is a stupid question, but I think I must be missing something. How is all of this different from turning WiFi off?
A few years back there was this issue of MacOS apps launching with a delay because the OS was checking with Appe if you are allowed to use the app. IIRC, this was just a bug.
Also, you won't be able to use iOS without an initial internet connection.
This creates a curiosity on how usable a Mac is without internet. As it turns out, it's pretty usable.
If you're talking about Nov 2021 when Apple's Gatekeeper servers went down, apps weren't just delayed, they were unable to be opened _at all_ unless you blocked DNS requests to the server or completely disabled your internet connection.
I believe the only apps that were allowed to be opened were the built in macOS apps. Why this verification is done on every single load is completely beyond me. After this and the whole iPhone 7 radio debacle I won't be buying their products for a long time.
I took my 7 to the Apple store in 2019 with this issue after giving it to my SO. I was told by the store rep that it was an issue with "the third party manufacturer" (Qualcomm) but Apple would do the repair for free. I learned from some independent repair communities that this was actually a really common issue and Apple was doing some silent recalls.
IIRC, Gatekeeper responses are cached for some amount of time for each app, so most people were still able to launch a given app. But yeah, you'd have to disable DNS or internet if you were unlucky and the cache had expired.
Apple's failure inspired me to research compressed CRLs. These don't have the same privacy problems as OCSP, and they work offline. As far as I can tell they would be a good replacement for OCSP here (and also in most cases on the web) but I don't know how one could convince them to roll them out.
Convinced this is why Spotlight is so janky on iOS lately and you’ll be just staring at a blank list while searching for a local app.
edit typos
Jonathan Levin is far more careful about verifying what he writes.
The „business model” you are speculating about is second in its insanity only to making MIT-or-more-permissive open source software with an expectation that a multibillion corporation picking it up for its own use will share profits with the author in a sudden ethic attack.
Also, Howard has been blogging about the Mac and making free apps available for many years. He's not suddenly going to pivot.
Why do the worst HN comments always rise to the top?
It does not follow from the GP comment's claim that the author must be writing for HN readers. There may be many articles written by many people about how the Mac works without a network connection, but this one happened to be the one to be posted to HN and make it to the front page because it has traits that are in line with what HN wants to read.
It seemed clear to me that the comment was a snide remark suggesting that the article was clickbait. Much like some of the other snide remarks on this submission, such as the sibling comment "The difference is that this article is an advertisement for the app they're selling." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35149157