4 ms·

With the pricing, 24h minimum and "only developers" restriction. it seems like there are exactly two usecases for this service. 1. You are a big company who ne

by phire 6y ago

With the pricing, 24h minimum and "only developers" restriction. it seems like there are exactly two usecases for this service. 1. You are a big company who needs Mac CI and your IT department has a strict "Cloud Only" restriction. 2. You are a developer for a cross-platform App who doesn't own a mac, but needs access to a real mac every few weeks or months for debugging/releasing.

andybak 6y ago
My use case is that I need to build for a recent iOS device but I don't want to upgrade my Macbook to an os version that doesn't support 32bit apps. But the 24hr thing kills it for me. I will never get 24 hours use out of it. Maybe a few hours. Why am I paying for the other 21 hours? Maybe someone can wrap this SaaS in a other Saas and sell timeshares in a virtual Mac.
- lukeramsden 6y ago
  > Why am I paying for the other 21 hours? Unsure if you've seen the comments elsewhere in the thread but in case you haven't and this is a genuine question - because Apple's EULA forces Amazon to do this.
  - andybak 6y ago
    Yes - I did know that. I guess my question is directed more at Apple. Why stipulate this unless they want to hobble reasonable use-cases or inflate usage arbitrarily. Is the answer simply "Because they can and they like money?"
    - Spivak 6y ago
      But only as a second-order effect. This will lead to needing to buy more Apple hardware to support such a service but it's the service provider that rakes in the cash (or doesn't because people don't need 24h) as a result of this EULA.
      - andybak 6y ago
        Surely this just means that more people won't bother and we're back to hackintoshes or upgrading old Apple hardware. Making something uneconomical isn't a great strategy to drive growth.
    - jedberg 6y ago
      > Why stipulate this unless they want to ... inflate usage arbitrarily That's exactly it. If you could rent Macs by the minute, you wouldn't need to own Mac hardware anymore to build Mac apps, and the cloud provider wouldn't need to own as much.
    - lukeramsden 6y ago
      > Why stipulate this unless they want to hobble reasonable use-cases or inflate usage arbitrarily. It seems this is Apple's sole motivation when it comes to anything developer related, which seems odd considering their goal is to commodotize software to sell their hardware - you'd think they wouldn't keep making it harder to make software for their platforms
  - dylan604 6y ago
    I'm honestly kind of surprised that this isn't a service that Apple offers directly. Keep it part of their walled garden. Only apps compiled on the ACC (Apple Cloud Compiler) will receive certificate signing which allows them to be offered in the AppStore. And by a service Apple offers, I of course mean a service Apple requires.
- chippiewill 6y ago
  > Maybe someone can wrap this SaaS in a other Saas and sell timeshares in a virtual Mac. That's precisely what the EULA prevents, otherwise Amazon would happily sell you smaller slice of time.
  - andybak 6y ago
    Ah. Of course!
- ballenf 6y ago
  Could you virtualize a newer MacOS version on your Mac hardware?
  - 0xCMP 6y ago
    Yea this should work because the license merely says it must be on Mac hardware and given that you're not letting everyone share/use the computer like AWS the new restrictions won't really matter.
  - andybak 6y ago
    > Could you virtualize a newer MacOS version on your Mac hardware? Yes but I'm more likely to vierualize on my more powerful and better value PC. The EULA is rather hard to enforce and I don't have any moral qualms in this particular case.
reaperducer 6y ago
it seems like there are exactly two usecases for this service. People always do this on HN. "I can only think of two things, so those are the only two things that can possibly exist." How about a render farm? If your company only produces three or four videos a year, why build a render farm that sits idle for half the year?
- AshamedCaptain 6y ago
  Because at some point it may literally be cheaper? Not that I made the math, but since the point here is about "opening the possibilities", then it is also possible that having a render farm sitting idle half a year is actually the more sensible option.
- treesknees 6y ago
  >People always do this on HN You mean have opinions and open discussion? "I can only think of two things" doesn't mean "there are only two things exactly and everyone else is wrong". Welcome to the Internet, I see you are new here.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    You mean have opinions and open discussion? No, dismiss the possibility that there may be things that they don't know about or understand. "I can only think of two things" doesn't mean "there are only two things exactly and everyone else is wrong". But that's precisely what he said: "exactly two usecases for this service" He didn't write "I can only think of..." You're making stuff up. Welcome to the Internet I shall say the same to you, since I've been online since before the internet, back when you had to manually route e-mail, and it took a week to get a message from New York to Paris, if you were lucky. I see you are new here. Welcome to HN. I see you're new here. Be sure to read the rules about unhelpful snarky responses.

by phire 6y ago

andybak 6y ago

My use case is that I need to build for a recent iOS device but I don't want to upgrade my Macbook to an os version that doesn't support 32bit apps. But the 24hr thing kills it for me. I will never get 24 hours use out of it. Maybe a few hours. Why am I paying for the other 21 hours? Maybe someone can wrap this SaaS in a other Saas and sell timeshares in a virtual Mac.

lukeramsden 6y ago
> Why am I paying for the other 21 hours? Unsure if you've seen the comments elsewhere in the thread but in case you haven't and this is a genuine question - because Apple's EULA forces Amazon to do this.
- andybak 6y ago
  Yes - I did know that. I guess my question is directed more at Apple. Why stipulate this unless they want to hobble reasonable use-cases or inflate usage arbitrarily. Is the answer simply "Because they can and they like money?"
  - Spivak 6y ago
    But only as a second-order effect. This will lead to needing to buy more Apple hardware to support such a service but it's the service provider that rakes in the cash (or doesn't because people don't need 24h) as a result of this EULA.
    - andybak 6y ago
      Surely this just means that more people won't bother and we're back to hackintoshes or upgrading old Apple hardware. Making something uneconomical isn't a great strategy to drive growth.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    > Why stipulate this unless they want to ... inflate usage arbitrarily That's exactly it. If you could rent Macs by the minute, you wouldn't need to own Mac hardware anymore to build Mac apps, and the cloud provider wouldn't need to own as much.
  - lukeramsden 6y ago
    > Why stipulate this unless they want to hobble reasonable use-cases or inflate usage arbitrarily. It seems this is Apple's sole motivation when it comes to anything developer related, which seems odd considering their goal is to commodotize software to sell their hardware - you'd think they wouldn't keep making it harder to make software for their platforms
- dylan604 6y ago
  I'm honestly kind of surprised that this isn't a service that Apple offers directly. Keep it part of their walled garden. Only apps compiled on the ACC (Apple Cloud Compiler) will receive certificate signing which allows them to be offered in the AppStore. And by a service Apple offers, I of course mean a service Apple requires.
chippiewill 6y ago
> Maybe someone can wrap this SaaS in a other Saas and sell timeshares in a virtual Mac. That's precisely what the EULA prevents, otherwise Amazon would happily sell you smaller slice of time.
- andybak 6y ago
  Ah. Of course!
ballenf 6y ago
Could you virtualize a newer MacOS version on your Mac hardware?
- 0xCMP 6y ago
  Yea this should work because the license merely says it must be on Mac hardware and given that you're not letting everyone share/use the computer like AWS the new restrictions won't really matter.
- andybak 6y ago
  > Could you virtualize a newer MacOS version on your Mac hardware? Yes but I'm more likely to vierualize on my more powerful and better value PC. The EULA is rather hard to enforce and I don't have any moral qualms in this particular case.

reaperducer 6y ago

it seems like there are exactly two usecases for this service. People always do this on HN. "I can only think of two things, so those are the only two things that can possibly exist." How about a render farm? If your company only produces three or four videos a year, why build a render farm that sits idle for half the year?

AshamedCaptain 6y ago
Because at some point it may literally be cheaper? Not that I made the math, but since the point here is about "opening the possibilities", then it is also possible that having a render farm sitting idle half a year is actually the more sensible option.
treesknees 6y ago
>People always do this on HN You mean have opinions and open discussion? "I can only think of two things" doesn't mean "there are only two things exactly and everyone else is wrong". Welcome to the Internet, I see you are new here.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  You mean have opinions and open discussion? No, dismiss the possibility that there may be things that they don't know about or understand. "I can only think of two things" doesn't mean "there are only two things exactly and everyone else is wrong". But that's precisely what he said: "exactly two usecases for this service" He didn't write "I can only think of..." You're making stuff up. Welcome to the Internet I shall say the same to you, since I've been online since before the internet, back when you had to manually route e-mail, and it took a week to get a message from New York to Paris, if you were lucky. I see you are new here. Welcome to HN. I see you're new here. Be sure to read the rules about unhelpful snarky responses.