[HN Gopher] 27-year-old Apple iBooks can connect to Wi-Fi and do...
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27-year-old Apple iBooks can connect to Wi-Fi and download official
updates
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 39 points
Date : 2026-02-18 20:54 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (old.reddit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (old.reddit.com)
| gok wrote:
| The oldest iBook G4 is from October 2003, not even 23 years old.
| queenkjuul wrote:
| I was gonna say. I do have an ibook G3 from 1999, but it can't
| use modern Wi-Fi (though if it's running the right OS, it could
| maybe update--i think I've done updates as far back as 10.3?)
| the AirPort card can talk to 802.11b over WEP - i have an old
| router set up with a MAC whitelist specifically so the ibook
| can get online still
| bsimpson wrote:
| I forgot the portable variant of the iMac was called the iBook. I
| thought this was about the book version of the Apple App Store.
| gattilorenz wrote:
| But only if you run Tiger or newer :)
| __natty__ wrote:
| And the UI was so good back then compared to the liquid glass
| introduced recently
| danielktdoranie wrote:
| I don't get the Liquid Glass hate, doesn't really impact me,
| but I can see it's really disliked by a lot of people!
| pdpi wrote:
| It's a giant "fuck you" to accessibility in general. It
| reminds me of the first designer I ever worked with, who
| designed for pretty screenshots and put zero thought into the
| actual interaction.
|
| E.g. the pervasive use of transparency means that you have
| text overlayed on text all over the place, so just literally
| can't read things.
| danielktdoranie wrote:
| Yeah, I keep an G4 PowerBook around to watch DVDs on and run
| PowerPC Mac abandonware... it can surprisingly do a lot. IRC,
| Hotline, BBS, Gopher, etc. A YouTube channel called "Squeezing
| The Apple" has a lot of videos showing the use you can get out of
| an old PowerPC Mac.
|
| Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@squeezingtheapple6990
|
| When you max out the RAM (around 2GB) and put in a solid state
| IDE hard disk they can be useful. I occasionally use mine as a
| distraction free writing tool.
|
| Other than abandonware (old games for example), they can't do
| anything a modern Mac couldn't do, so I wouldn't go nuts finding
| and buying one of these but if you have one laying around, and
| have the parts you need for an upgrade these old Macs can be fun.
| queenkjuul wrote:
| Well the reddit post is massively misleading (no ibook is
| currently supported, that one isn't 27 years old, and 27 year old
| ones can't connect to modern Wi-Fi) but i do appreciate that my
| PowerBook G4 can get on Wi-Fi and download software regardless
| tokyobreakfast wrote:
| Of course it's massively misleading, it's farming for updoots.
|
| Further proving the (unpopular) point I made earlier today:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47066456
|
| Source: I own one of these iBooks and it most certainly can NOT
| connect to modern Wi-Fi, not out of the box. IIRC it cannot do
| WPA2, or required an update to do so, which was not available
| in the Tiger install media, so a chicken-or-egg scenario.
| Definitely will fail on a mixed WPA2/WPA3 network.
|
| Assume it can connect to Wi-Fi, the TLS libraries are ancient
| and nothing will work. Including authenticating to iTunes, etc.
| Samba is ancient and will not connect to shares running SMB2 or
| newer. It also ignores than OS X versions newer than Tiger have
| broken App Stores and other things.
|
| Wait till everyone finds out Apple served software updates in
| those days over plain HTTP which is why it "works"...
| amelius wrote:
| Yes, Apple never misses an opportunity to cripple any decently
| running hardware.
| canpan wrote:
| Well it fits into the news this month: UT2004 got its latest
| patch, Diablo 2 got a new expansion. Why not connect a 2003 iBook
| to download the latest updates?
| rtpg wrote:
| Kinda funny how this is true but there's a line of Mac OSes that
| can't connect to the App Store anymore so you can't upgrade the
| OS without manually downloading it off of an Apple help page.
|
| It's not the end of the world, but I've had to help more than one
| person walk through this process cuz they're like "I can't update
| the OS????"
| stormed wrote:
| > Apple is the opposite of planned obsolescence.
|
| OpenCore would like a word about that. It's nice to get official
| security patches, but Apple does make perfectly capable machines
| obsolete.
| ge96 wrote:
| There was a surreal video I watched where an Apple Macintosh
| connected to Google, it took a really long time.
|
| The video I believe it was sitting on a floor
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(page generated 2026-02-18 23:00 UTC)