6 ms·

The 24 hour minimum pricing model for these really sucks. My understanding is that this is a condition of Apple's license to Amazon to run macOS on these machin

The 24 hour minimum pricing model for these really sucks. My understanding is that this is a condition of Apple's license to Amazon to run macOS on these machines, and I can't work out why they'd do it.

mcraiha 5y ago
I do not understand why Apple hates developers. There are many developers that need Mac machines for CI/CD, but Apple doesn't provide any reasonable solution.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Apple gives themselves and GitHub special deals, which I guess is what they feel to be a reasonable solution.
- MBCook 5y ago
  That’s what XCode Cloud (now in beta for some users) is designed for.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  How else are they supposed to force you to buy more units?
- loudtieblahblah 5y ago
  Apple hates it's users. Why should devs be any different?
reaperducer 5y ago
My guess is that its market research shows that for a profitable number of people, the 24-hour requirement isn't a big deal. It's not like Amazon doesn't have the ability or experience to research business decisions before they're made.
- detaro 5y ago
  It's an Apple requirement (it applies to all rent-a-mac type services), I doubt Amazon would mind splitting it shorter (like they do with everything else) if they could.
willis936 5y ago
It probably helps selling a false narrative to shareholders. "Look at how many hours our hardware was rented for!" with no regard for how many hours were actually spent doing work.
- jermaustin1 5y ago
  That makes no sense. Apple doesn't rent hardware.
detaro 5y ago
Because they want you to buy your own macs.
- jbverschoor 5y ago
  For now.. but they'll have their own cloud hosting (xcode cloud is a test). The AWS contract expires soon..
neilalexander 5y ago
They aren't just firing up a virtual machine on over-provisioned hardware, they're dedicating an entire bare metal machine to you. It is in their interests to make that worthwhile commercially.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  These are Apple's terms that Amazon is following, not the other way around. You are getting bare metal that you have to reserve for a minimum of 24 hours because that's how Apple allows it to be licensed not because that's what Amazon thought would make the most sense.
  - moondev 5y ago
    I run VMware esxi on my Mac mini with 64G of memory to create plenty of macos and Linux vms. Are you saying this is against the TOS?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - notinty 5y ago
      AIUI there's no EULA problems virtualizing macOS on Mac hardware. This is about a minimum 24-hour rental of Mac Minis tho.
  - rektide 5y ago
    I have such a hard time imagining what sick twisting legal crap allows Apple to dictate terms like this. Another example is Nvidia explicitly dis-allowing their consumer GPUs to be used in data-centers. It's wild to me that company's can just make up whatever terms of use they feel like & we have to accept that. Edit: oh hello, i'm at -4! Anyone care to defend your outrage at my outrage? What makes this seem at all ok? This seems so fundamentally screwy to me. Questions like how Apple is allowed to ban other browsers[1] show related type of confusion over the vast ecosystem control that seems to be spreading, but there at least there's some cloudy App Store Apple clearly retains some rights of control over. First-sale rights in America is fairly narrow in what they permit, but in America at least, there's very much been an idea that consumers become owners of the things they buy. It feels like a modern regression that there have been so many asterisks added to this straightforward & obvious right. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29419825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29419825
vineyardmike 5y ago
I bet a part is that apple genuinely doesn’t want to deal with MacOS being a server OS so they want a little bit of “are you sure?” Requirements in there. A potentially bigger reason (for requiring 24hr) is to incentivize people who need a max for small bursts (eg build server, testing a website with safari etc) to just buy macs. I imagine a reason to require bare-metal hosting because everyone is lauding apple on how snappy and lively the M1 is and if they’re split between N number of VMs then you may have a worse experience and apple is protecting that.

mcraiha 5y ago

I do not understand why Apple hates developers. There are many developers that need Mac machines for CI/CD, but Apple doesn't provide any reasonable solution.

saagarjha 5y ago
Apple gives themselves and GitHub special deals, which I guess is what they feel to be a reasonable solution.
MBCook 5y ago
That’s what XCode Cloud (now in beta for some users) is designed for.
smoldesu 5y ago
How else are they supposed to force you to buy more units?
loudtieblahblah 5y ago
Apple hates it's users. Why should devs be any different?

reaperducer 5y ago

My guess is that its market research shows that for a profitable number of people, the 24-hour requirement isn't a big deal. It's not like Amazon doesn't have the ability or experience to research business decisions before they're made.

detaro 5y ago
It's an Apple requirement (it applies to all rent-a-mac type services), I doubt Amazon would mind splitting it shorter (like they do with everything else) if they could.

willis936 5y ago

It probably helps selling a false narrative to shareholders. "Look at how many hours our hardware was rented for!" with no regard for how many hours were actually spent doing work.

jermaustin1 5y ago
That makes no sense. Apple doesn't rent hardware.

detaro 5y ago

Because they want you to buy your own macs.

jbverschoor 5y ago
For now.. but they'll have their own cloud hosting (xcode cloud is a test). The AWS contract expires soon..

neilalexander 5y ago

They aren't just firing up a virtual machine on over-provisioned hardware, they're dedicating an entire bare metal machine to you. It is in their interests to make that worthwhile commercially.

zamadatix 5y ago
These are Apple's terms that Amazon is following, not the other way around. You are getting bare metal that you have to reserve for a minimum of 24 hours because that's how Apple allows it to be licensed not because that's what Amazon thought would make the most sense.
- moondev 5y ago
  I run VMware esxi on my Mac mini with 64G of memory to create plenty of macos and Linux vms. Are you saying this is against the TOS?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - notinty 5y ago
    AIUI there's no EULA problems virtualizing macOS on Mac hardware. This is about a minimum 24-hour rental of Mac Minis tho.
- rektide 5y ago
  I have such a hard time imagining what sick twisting legal crap allows Apple to dictate terms like this. Another example is Nvidia explicitly dis-allowing their consumer GPUs to be used in data-centers. It's wild to me that company's can just make up whatever terms of use they feel like & we have to accept that. Edit: oh hello, i'm at -4! Anyone care to defend your outrage at my outrage? What makes this seem at all ok? This seems so fundamentally screwy to me. Questions like how Apple is allowed to ban other browsers[1] show related type of confusion over the vast ecosystem control that seems to be spreading, but there at least there's some cloudy App Store Apple clearly retains some rights of control over. First-sale rights in America is fairly narrow in what they permit, but in America at least, there's very much been an idea that consumers become owners of the things they buy. It feels like a modern regression that there have been so many asterisks added to this straightforward & obvious right. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29419825 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29419825

vineyardmike 5y ago

I bet a part is that apple genuinely doesn’t want to deal with MacOS being a server OS so they want a little bit of “are you sure?” Requirements in there. A potentially bigger reason (for requiring 24hr) is to incentivize people who need a max for small bursts (eg build server, testing a website with safari etc) to just buy macs. I imagine a reason to require bare-metal hosting because everyone is lauding apple on how snappy and lively the M1 is and if they’re split between N number of VMs then you may have a worse experience and apple is protecting that.