[HN Gopher] Apple at 50
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Apple at 50
Author : janandonly
Score : 85 points
Date : 2026-04-01 18:48 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| jasoneckert wrote:
| 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?"
| jgbuddy wrote:
| Agreed
| compiler-devel wrote:
| 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...
| ErneX wrote:
| They had a bunch of artists playing live at some Apple Stores,
| they even got Paul McCartney doing a concert at their HQ.
| gizajob wrote:
| Wow. Few more million in the bank for Macca.
| duderific wrote:
| 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.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| 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.
| irickt wrote:
| 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.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| a Jobsian decision
| sharkjacobs wrote:
| 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
| saintfire wrote:
| 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.
| jedberg wrote:
| 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?
| davidczech wrote:
| Paul McCartney played inside the ring yesterday.
| freehorse wrote:
| 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...
| mghackerlady wrote:
| 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)
| yalogin wrote:
| 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
| layer8 wrote:
| 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.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| 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.
| Angostura wrote:
| My iPhone 13 mini launched around the same time runs it
| with zero problems
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| 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
| afandian wrote:
| 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)
| lapcat wrote:
| You won't see it if Reduced Motion is enabled in Accessibility
| Settings.
| afandian wrote:
| 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.
| layer8 wrote:
| Click on the "<< REW" at the bottom. Though I haven't tried if
| it works on Firefox.
| afandian wrote:
| 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)
| layer8 wrote:
| The button links to: https://www.apple.com/105/media/us/hom
| e/2026/84ec8a66-d69d-4...
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| If there is one company I'd say that has made a significant
| (positive) difference in my life, I'd say it is Apple.
| jeffbee wrote:
| If I only had to pick _one_ I 'd probably go with Monsanto.
| fragmede wrote:
| 3M
| mojuba wrote:
| 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.
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| 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?
| jondwillis wrote:
| 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)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| 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
| commandersaki wrote:
| Same, OSX was the only OS that worked with me when I was
| legally blind.
| mghackerlady wrote:
| at least tech wise, at&t or maybeeee sun for me
| 01-_- wrote:
| I'd like to congratulate the company on the excellent products
| and services they've provided and the security they offer.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| No acknowledgment of the Apple ][ tth_tth
| timbit42 wrote:
| The Apple seed died a long, long time ago.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Associated Tim Cook letter (from a few weeks ago):
| https://www.apple.com/50-years-of-thinking-different/
| fastaguy88 wrote:
| 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.
| armadsen wrote:
| The animation was visible on Safari when I viewed it very early
| this morning (10 hours ago), and again about 3 hours ago.
| hexasquid wrote:
| Not exactly "heres to the crazy ones" anymore eh
| karel-3d wrote:
| Oh, Apple Vision. They still sell that, eh. (Do they?)
| joezydeco wrote:
| I was expecting to see a Newton, and got an eMate 300 and a well-
| timed fake glitch in the audio. Seems apropos.
| MarsIronPI wrote:
| 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_.)
| joblessjunkie wrote:
| 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.
| detourdog wrote:
| 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.
| mghackerlady wrote:
| 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
| WillAdams wrote:
| 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....
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| Pretty disappointing little amateur video.
| nickvec wrote:
| Is the entire video just scribbles of the different Apple
| products over the years? Pretty lackluster celebration if you ask
| me.
| butterlesstoast wrote:
| "Lackluster celebration" is on brand for Apple these days.
| joezydeco wrote:
| All "celebration" is marketing.
|
| I'm not sure what Apple needs to do here short of handing you
| $50 cash or something.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| 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/
| darth_avocado wrote:
| 50 years of thinking different, more like 43 years of thinking
| different and 7 years of pivoting to milking the cash cow.
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(page generated 2026-04-01 23:01 UTC)