Apple at 50 | Hacker News Reader

Apple at 50

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126 pointsjanandonly75 comments

That video is underwhelming to say the least, I expected to be able to click through and navigate each product and learn about data like number of units sold, what the impact was etc…

And in general expected more too

At least they unexpectedly released iOS and iPadOS 18.7.7 today with a DarkSword fix for people who stayed on 18 to avoid Liquid Glass.

It me, no way I’m updating to 26 on my 8th gen iPad (5 years old) because it’ll be slowed to a crawl.

My iPhone 13 mini launched around the same time runs it with zero problems

We have a mini in my household and I wouldn’t call it “zero problems”. It’s usable but definitely slower than iOS 18. My iPhone 17 visibly struggles with basic browser UI rendering. I’m not satisfied with iOS 26. Here’s hoping they improve performance in 27.

My 2019 iPad Air with 3GB RAM runs it fine including multi window mode. That by itself makes it the most significant upgrade in at least the last 10 years

there's supposed to be a video. I'm on safari - it just shows a static image - which is simple and beautiful.

Did you click the rewind button?

This is the link to the video for future reference when the homepage changes back (assuming the url to the video may stay)

https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/home/2026/84ec8a66-d69d-4...

I wish you could access and explore the directories like you can with some apache hosted sites (I know nothing about the web, so if there's an easy way to do it please inform me it would be good to know)

If there is one company I'd say that has made a significant (positive) difference in my life, I'd say it is Apple.

If I only had to pick one I'd probably go with Monsanto.

You are not alone.

15 years ago I was thinking about switching my career to a different industry altogether, just didn't know what it would be. One thing I knew was that I was so tired of building web sites and backends. Boring, repetitive, uninspiring.

Then a friend asked me to write a simple iPhone app. I had no idea what development for Apple platforms would be like...

Fast forward to 2026, I'm 57 now, still in tech, building apps for Apple platforms, still enjoying it very much.

The durability of their products still surprises me. I still own and use iPhone 11 (still it is my first iPhone when I switched from Android). Still getting latest iOS updates and functioning very well and may last for 2 more years. What other phone could do this?

Typing this on an iPhone 11 as well. Still feeling zero pressure to upgrade.

I’ve had the exact opposite journey. Native apps, disillusioned and frustrated with the backwards tooling, moved on to more open platforms (web apps and backends)

I’m curious what you find “backwards” about native tooling. I know the sentiment is common, and there must be some truth to it. But my partner works in web infra and frequently laments her inability to trace a single request through her company’s monolith while trying to reconstruct a failure from logs, and I am baffled that there’s no equivalent to attaching a debugger and stepping through execution.

It's been my bread and butter.

Sort of a love/hate relationship, though. Anyone who is a seasoned Apple dev, has been incandescent with rage at Apple, at more than a few points in the relationship.

But the thing I can't forget, is the absolute torrent of derision and abuse from Apple-haters, telling me what a loser I was, for sticking with them.

Funnily enough, I've not felt like hating anyone back. Never worked for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_tDj1BvEfw

I never understood the tribalism. For nearly a decade now I have used Windows, Linux, and Macs essentially daily. I have an Ubuntu desktop in my shop, a variety of Debian servers in the cloud, a Windows desktop in my office, a Mac Mini in my bedroom, a MacBook in my bag, and a handful of iPhones/iPads everywhere else. They’re useful for different applications and workflows, and it’s not that difficult to adapt to where they all feel natural. I recognize I’m the weird one though, and I rather enjoy learning new interfaces (I switch my default web browser every few years for “fun” and as a maintenance strategy (kind of like an especially opinionated factory reset).

Same, OSX was the only OS that worked with me when I was legally blind.

at least tech wise, at&t or maybeeee sun for me

Not exactly "heres to the crazy ones" anymore eh

Associated Tim Cook letter (from a few weeks ago): https://www.apple.com/50-years-of-thinking-different/

I'd be interested in hearing from the Apple aficionados today what they think of Apple as it was in its beginnings (i.e. the Apple I and Apple ][) compared to how it is now.

I'm not an Apple person, but I can only wish that they would release their Apple silicon for non-Apple chassis (kinda like the original Apple I?). If I could jury-rig an Apple board into a 2010s Thinkpad I'd drop $1000 in a heartbeat. Instead they don't encourage tinkering with their hardware anymore. (The fact that they could lock it down even more is noted, but shouldn't really be praiseworthy.)

I’m a greybeard, I played Oregon trail on the II and remember the first Mac.

IMO Apple (well, Jobs) was always trying to create a sealed, perfect appliance for regular people, even in the very early days. Apple worked very hard to hide all implementation details. Hackers, on the contrary, want to see and tweak all those hidden details. The complaints today were the same in the 80s.

To his credit, Jobs finally got there. My mother is in her 70s and the iPad is the only computer she’s ever used.

Apple clicked with me when our middle school computer lab conisted of an Apple II+ and a TRS-80. The TRS-80 seemed unusable as it required a cassette tape to save and retrieve files and the Apple II+ had floppy disks. I remember reading about the Lisa being a computer so simple that a 2 year old could use one. I thought that was the craziest thing I ever heard. I tried to imagine how that could be case. Years later my Mom (someone with a masters in english and made her living as a potter) happened upon a demo of the Mac 128k. She couldn't believe the experience and purchased one. Changed her career with desktop publishing.

My training was Industrial Design but I Have spent my whole career administrating Mac Networks. My first job involved networking a 30 person design firm. The computers were half Macs and half PCs. When System 7 was released the Macs we purchased Ascente ethernet card for them and they all worked. We needed to purchase ethernet cards for the PCs we had to move them off DOS, switch the from Word Perfect 5.1 (pissimg off the writers) and install Novell 3.11 to network the PCs and added a Mac NLM to the server to exchange files between the 2.

I love OS X but System 7 was better. I think the Mac lost it's simplicity when the Desktop was moved into the home directory. Everything became more complicated. I still think Apple caters to the founding spirit of simple computing tools for people. Computing has just become too complicated.

the apple I was very much not that, being built from entirely off the shelf parts and having the source code available for the closest thing to an operating system as it had (wozmon)

the apple II was a slight bit of a setback but it was very much still an open platform, with a very good reference manual written by Woz himself. it even had fully commented ROM listings. I don't know enough about the III to comment on whether or not it was as good in this regard but I suspect it wasn't since it wasn't so close to the hardware like the IIs

then came the Lisa and while it wasn't as bad as the Mac it still wasn't great, and then the Mac killed any hope of hackability

True, but to each their own. There was trend line towards usability. I would say the Mac was a big step towards where they were going.

If you want hackability there were other choices. Usability was there focus. Having a floppy disk was a major advancement even though a cassette tape was technically usable.

Oh I agree the mac and lisa were infinitely more accessible than the II but they could've at least made some concessions earlier than they did (I don't think any of the macs had an expansion bus until the II)

The SE has a single NUBUS slot which is how we installed the Ascente ethernet cards. I would say the SE is probably the same generation of the II. I think the II the SE and the CI were probably all the same generation. I also think the II's code name was the Open Mac.

For a summer program, I, along with some other kids and a teacher were supposed to build a robot --- since none of us know how to solder, we instead used the money to purchase a computer, modify a nice Rubbermaid trash can and a lazy susan and some drawer slides to hold it along w/ a few accessories (notably a Cognivox voice recognition unit), calling it CTC-1 (Computerized Trash Can mark 1) --- an Apple ][ was selected over the other options (a TRS-80 Model III and an Atari 800 were the other possibilities).

Bought a copy of _Apple Machine Language_ by Don and Kurt Inman, and did BASIC programming (having previously started w/ whatever BASIC was on the HP 3000 at the local college where a gifted and talented summer program allowed access.

Then, there were rumours in _Byte Magazine_ that Apple was making a new computer, and one day, in the copy of _Newsweek_ in the high school library there was a _16-page_ advertisement (which I pulled out and kept w/ my _MacWorld_ magazines --- had a full run of the first couple of years, but I'm getting ahead of myself....)

Graduated, enlisted, began training, then on leave at home that Christmas took out a huge loan and bought basically one of every Mac related thing in the store, including the bag to carry everything in (excepting the ImageWriter printer) --- used it for years, eventually getting HyperCard, playing _The Manhole_ (Where Alice would have gone if Alice had had HyperCard, a precursor to the game _Myst_) as well as buying a copy of _Through the Looking Glass_, the only game Apple ever made. Got out and went to college studying graphic design, using a variety of Windows computers (drove all the way to the state capitol to buy a copy of Adobe Type Manager for Windows 3.0), and then was gifted a NeXT Cube by my brother-in-law. Also bought a Newton MessagePad 110 and used it w/ the NeXT using a serial link to transfer data. And, I bought an NCR-3125 running Go Corp.'s PenPoint, which had a Wacom EMR stylus which paired well w/ the Wacom ArtZ tablet connected to the Cube.

A copy of OPENSTEP 4.2 for the Cube was the last thing I bought from Apple until I bought a copy of Mac OS X Public Beta.

A thing which I hoped for, for a while was that they would use the NeXTBus and make a motherboard for the NeXT Cube which would run contemporary software....

A great way to vicariously experience all this is to read:

https://folklore.org/0-index.html

there's even a story on the game:

https://folklore.org/Alice.html

Amusingly, 15 min ago, the animation did not work on my MacOS Safari (Sequoia), but it was visible on Chrome. Now (1600 UTC-4), it is animated on Safari.

The animation was visible on Safari when I viewed it very early this morning (10 hours ago), and again about 3 hours ago.

I wrote an essay on Steve Job's headspace and decision making approach during Apple's key stages during their 50 year journey.

Would make for a good coffee read here- https://mapmydecision.com/decisions/apple-at-50.html

I see people mentioning an animation? I see only a large apple logo and some words. What else are people seeing?

(Firefox on Mac OS. Also Safari on Mac OS)

You won't see it if Reduced Motion is enabled in Accessibility Settings.

Thanks, that was it. Nice to see Apple respecting my UX wishes.

On my iPhone I see a 'REW' button which plays another video, but it doesn't show on my Mac.

Click on the “<< REW” at the bottom. Though I haven’t tried if it works on Firefox.

No such button on my machine. Even when I disable 'reduce motion' per my other comment.

(I did try on my iPhone and the REW button is present)

The button links to: https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/home/2026/84ec8a66-d69d-4...

Highlights from Computer History Museum's Apple at 50: Five Decades of Thinking Different event last month:

Panel included David Pogue, Chris Espinsoa, John Sculley, Avie Tevanian.

https://computerhistory.org/blog/celebrating-apple-at-50/

Is the entire video just scribbles of the different Apple products over the years? Pretty lackluster celebration if you ask me.

"Lackluster celebration" is on brand for Apple these days.

All "celebration" is marketing.

I'm not sure what Apple needs to do here short of handing you $50 cash or something.

Apple has created vibrant videos, both internal and for marketing, to celebrate their history.

For some 1980s cheese, there is We Are Apple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbJy0O4UFSM

The company wasn't even 10 years old at that point.

There's also "Apple ][ Forever"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcjlhFVTY50

These videos have a certain look, and it comes from how they were originally presented to the audience with a massive bank of computer-controlled slide projectors that could cross-fade between images.

50 years of thinking different, more like 43 years of thinking different and 7 years of pivoting to milking the cash cow.

Sad, but nailed it.

> 7 years of pivoting to milking the cash cow

So you're saying you want to go back to the ... intel Mac era?

The M1 MacBook Air came out in 2020 and was transformative.

Apple Silicon era has launched a number of landmark products since 2020 including: MacBook Pro M1 (I'm still using one), Mac Studio (moment of silence for the pre-DRAM shortage 512GB model), iPad M4/M5, M4 Mac mini, and Mac Neo.

Apple Vision Pro isn't much of a success but it is thinking outside of Apple's typical boxes.

All the roads around the Apple Spaceship were closed yesterday, and I was surprised I didn't see any news about announcements. Apparently they just closed the roads for their 50th birthday party?

Paul McCartney played inside the ring yesterday.

The roads around Apple Park are usually partially or fully closed during WWDC. It’s just traffic management.

I know. Which is why I was looking for a product announcement. I assumed they had an event like wwdc. But it was just Paul McCartney

> But it was just Paul McCartney

At first I thought that was a figure of speech. But it was literally just Paul McCartney.

I was expecting to see a Newton, and got an eMate 300 and a well-timed fake glitch in the audio. Seems apropos.

John Gruber is going to lose his mind that the Extended Keyboard II is not in the video

It's a nice animation, but for such a significant anniversary - and from a company like Apple - I expected a lot more hoopla and content. This could indicate that there wasn't a lot of planning involved, that it wasn't a high-priority item, or that Apple had enough people with time to focus on it.

It's almost as if someone near the end of a meeting said "Oh crud, we've got to do something to acknowledge our 50th anniversary - can someone put something together, and quick?"

Agreed

Apple's acknowledged their anniversary for weeks, especially during the recent product launches like the Neo. It started back in mid March [0].

[0] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/apple-to-celebrate-50...

They had a bunch of artists playing live at some Apple Stores, they even got Paul McCartney doing a concert at their HQ.

Wow. Few more million in the bank for Macca.

It's wild to me that at 83 years of age, he still wants to do gigs like this. Pretty sure he doesn't need the money.

It's not hard for me to imagine that performing as one of the world's most beloved rock stars, doing what you've loved for many decades, is an enjoyable way to spend your time, regardless of the paycheck.

Seems to me that they are simple saying its not important:

"At 50 years, it’s only natural to look back. But Apple has always looked forward, building tools and delivering experiences that enrich people’s lives. As we celebrate how far we’ve come, we’re inspired by where we’ll go — together."

And, no, I don't think they left it to chance.

Also there's an art video to go with the art animation.

a Jobsian decision

The Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh came to be regarded as such a mistake and quintessential example of how misguided Apple was during the wilderness era that I'm not surprised they went in the opposite direction. Institutional memory etc etc

I'd like to congratulate the company on the excellent products and services they've provided and the security they offer.

should have made a video similar to the intro for johnny quest

Nearly as bloated and stuck on the past as most 50yo Americans.

No acknowledgment of the Apple ][ ಠ_ಠ

The Apple seed died a long, long time ago.

Oh, Apple Vision. They still sell that, eh. (Do they?)

Pretty disappointing little amateur video.

This webpage performs shockingly bad on my phone for a (basically) empty page with a video.

I guess it's like their phones. Got too old, slow 'er down.

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