there needs to be free certificates at least for testing / dev stuff.
You can do it yourself by setting up your own internal CA and trusting the root certificate on your test machines. It's totally free and included in Windows Server.
Apple has had its share of failures, reminds me of the Apple Lisa.
It's bemusing you had to go back 30 years to be reminded of an Apple failure.
I dislike Apple (as a company) even more than Microsoft now, but your statement just underscores how successful Apple has been in the past decade. Microsoft? Not so much.
what about the Mac Cube?
Testing can show the presense of bugs, but not their absence. -- Dijkstra