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Disrupt the hosting market, Apple. We're ready for your EC2. Achieving a quantum power/performance leap without swinging for server market share is an massive

Disrupt the hosting market, Apple. We're ready for your EC2. Achieving a quantum power/performance leap without swinging for server market share is an massive wasted opportunity. But Apple is Apple. I'll keep dreaming. Oh look, an AWS invoice.

dane 5y ago
Completely agree. I can't see them reviving the Xserve brand with their own silicon, but I could see them introducing cloud hosting services. Ideally with differentiation in something like environmental credentials (reduced, renewable power, etc.) to try and gain market share whilst maintaining margin.
- andrewjl 5y ago
  They already have, though the marketing is subtle. [1][2] [1] https://www.apple.com/icloud/ https://www.apple.com/icloud/ [2] https://developer.apple.com/icloud/cloudkit/ https://developer.apple.com/icloud/cloudkit/
  - klohto 5y ago
    We are talking AWS competitors, not Google Drive alternative.
    - andrewjl 5y ago
      Besides a deliberate paucity of knobs to tweak, what exactly is the difference with AWS S3 as far as the target market (app developers) is concerned? This is a cloud hosting service in all but name. https://developer.apple.com/icloud/icloud-drive/ https://developer.apple.com/icloud/icloud-drive/ https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/DataManagement/Conceptual/DocumentBasedAppPGiOS/Introduction/Introduction.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Da...
thitcanh 5y ago
What’s the advantage? I don’t think it’s likely to cost less as a service, especially directly from Apple. If you get the same performance per dollar you might as well keep using what you have. Heat and energy savings only apply to the direct user (in this case Apple Hosting) and unlikely to be passed onto you (since it’s Apple). We’ve already seen this with M1 computers which are simpler and less expensive but did not have a lower retail price.
- buildbuildbuild 5y ago
  They would use their scale and engineering muscle to differentiate. Free outgoing bandwidth to iCloud users. The most eco friendly cloud. “Lambda at edge” which can compute on charging iOS devices nearby, those users earn a little Apple Cash. “Launch in iCloud” thin client support for resource intensive applications, using a proprietary low latency VNC alternative (like Parsec). I want to see them get creative.
Tsiklon 5y ago
Apple's focus tends to be on consumer products, I don't see them swinging for the fences and presenting an AWS like cloud offering at least under their own name. Personally I'd like them to offer alternative versions of their CPU to cloud providers, I imagine that the current core configurations are not ideal for the sorts of workloads the big cloud providers need from a single processor. But this will require serious heavy lifting and would likely require official linux support for Apple's hardware (undoubtedly they have internal systems running bare metal linux on Apple silicon), however I don't see Apple wanting to do this in the open and in public.
thenickdude 5y ago
AWS is bringing ARM to the cloud in the form of their new Graviton instances, so in a way we already have this. https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/ https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/
- lowbloodsugar 5y ago
  "has already brought"

dane 5y ago

Completely agree. I can't see them reviving the Xserve brand with their own silicon, but I could see them introducing cloud hosting services. Ideally with differentiation in something like environmental credentials (reduced, renewable power, etc.) to try and gain market share whilst maintaining margin.

andrewjl 5y ago
They already have, though the marketing is subtle. [1][2] [1] https://www.apple.com/icloud/ https://www.apple.com/icloud/ [2] https://developer.apple.com/icloud/cloudkit/ https://developer.apple.com/icloud/cloudkit/
- klohto 5y ago
  We are talking AWS competitors, not Google Drive alternative.
  - andrewjl 5y ago
    Besides a deliberate paucity of knobs to tweak, what exactly is the difference with AWS S3 as far as the target market (app developers) is concerned? This is a cloud hosting service in all but name. https://developer.apple.com/icloud/icloud-drive/ https://developer.apple.com/icloud/icloud-drive/ https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/DataManagement/Conceptual/DocumentBasedAppPGiOS/Introduction/Introduction.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Da...

thitcanh 5y ago

What’s the advantage? I don’t think it’s likely to cost less as a service, especially directly from Apple. If you get the same performance per dollar you might as well keep using what you have. Heat and energy savings only apply to the direct user (in this case Apple Hosting) and unlikely to be passed onto you (since it’s Apple). We’ve already seen this with M1 computers which are simpler and less expensive but did not have a lower retail price.

buildbuildbuild 5y ago
They would use their scale and engineering muscle to differentiate. Free outgoing bandwidth to iCloud users. The most eco friendly cloud. “Lambda at edge” which can compute on charging iOS devices nearby, those users earn a little Apple Cash. “Launch in iCloud” thin client support for resource intensive applications, using a proprietary low latency VNC alternative (like Parsec). I want to see them get creative.

Tsiklon 5y ago

Apple's focus tends to be on consumer products, I don't see them swinging for the fences and presenting an AWS like cloud offering at least under their own name. Personally I'd like them to offer alternative versions of their CPU to cloud providers, I imagine that the current core configurations are not ideal for the sorts of workloads the big cloud providers need from a single processor. But this will require serious heavy lifting and would likely require official linux support for Apple's hardware (undoubtedly they have internal systems running bare metal linux on Apple silicon), however I don't see Apple wanting to do this in the open and in public.

thenickdude 5y ago

AWS is bringing ARM to the cloud in the form of their new Graviton instances, so in a way we already have this. https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/ https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/

lowbloodsugar 5y ago
"has already brought"