Are upgrades to the newest and still supported macOS version free?

All of Apple’s macOS updates are free, and have been since 2013. However, Apple drops official support for their computers after about 5 or 6 years. This is exactly the same as how iOS updates work, too. macOS Sonoma (the latest version) is officially supported for all Macs made since 2018. You can still install modern versions of macOS on older devices, but you have to use third-party tools such as Open Core Legacy Patcher.

What other applications do macOS users get for free?

A number of Apple’s apps come pre-installed with macOS. These include Safari (a web browser), Messages, FaceTime (video-calling app), Maps, Pages (Apple’s version of MS Word) and more. Here’s a full list. You may recognise many of these from iOS. Controversially, most of these pre-installed apps receive updates with the OS, and can’t be updated without also updating the OS. Therefore, all of these apps receive free updates for as long as Apple updates the OS.

Apple also sells a handful of paid apps for a one-time charge, the most well-known of which is Final Cut Pro. They also have subscription services for some of their other apps, such as Apple Music.

Do macOS users get more free apps if they create an account with apple?

Some features in Apple’s apps require an “Apple ID” (Apple account). An example would be iMessage, which is Apple’s closed-source messaging protocol. It’s somewhat similar to the RTS protocol feature-wise, but it’s a closed system (in true Apple fashion).

Of course, buying any subscriptions from Apple also requires you to have an Apple ID.

I’ve understood adobe and MS-Office are active at the mac app store. How does apple’s business model work?

You can choose to download apps from the App Store or from a website. Most developers make their apps available from the web rather than the App Store, because Apple charges money to offer apps on the App Store. It costs $99 per year, plus 15-30% of the money made from people buying the app or from in-app purchases.

Microsoft Office apps are available from the App Store, but you have to download most Adobe apps from their website. As mentioned above, this is to avoid the 15% cut that Apple would probably take from Adobe’s subscription revenue if it was available on the App Store.

Do I buy the app, pay once and get free updates and upgrades indefinitely? or do I have to pay them a monthly fee?

Apps downloaded from the App Store are updated automatically, and most will give you free updates forever. The developer gets to choose which OS versions they support, and can publish updates for your device even after that device stops receiving OS updates from Apple.

Can LibreOffice be used on a macOS?

I don’t use LibreOffice personally, but their website says its supported. Another alternative is Apple’s equivalent of MS Office, which is free and supports MS file types.

Is there an emulator to use ubuntu or windows based apps on a mac? Are they free of charge?

There are emulators, yes. Wine is a popular emulator for Windows apps. I personally use Whisky, which is Wine-based and has a nice GUI. It should be noted that not all windows apps will work through Wine, but I’ve had success with many and even some games (most recently Lethal Company, which I was able to run at a stable 120fps using Whisky).

Intead of emulating a single app using Wine, you can also emulate Windows entirely if you want to. I’ve used Virtual Box to do this in the past. Parallels Desktop is a sleeker alternative that many people use, but it’s subscription based. I personally haven’t tried it.

On older Macs (that have Intel chips) you can install Windows directly alongside macOS. Modern Macs (ones with Apple Silicon chips) can’t run Windows natively, but there is a version of Linux (Asahi Linux) that runs on Mac.

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I hope this answers your questions :)