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I think we are more likely to see Apple enter this market than Meta. I just don't think the company has the leadership with the vision to do it. They are too fo

I think we are more likely to see Apple enter this market than Meta. I just don't think the company has the leadership with the vision to do it. They are too focused on being central to users lives to sell ads, and seem to be betting the company on VR which anyone outside the bubble can see has no place as a central social device. Apple on the other hand will be looking at the cloud market and be thinking how can they do it differently? Not just compete selling a commodity, be create a step change in the market. I could see them utilising their silicone expertises and some creative thinking to launch a cloud system unlike what is currently available.

Mikeb85 4y ago
> I think we are more likely to see Apple enter this market than Meta Not a chance. They're allergic to other OSes and have discontinued MacOS server.
- samwillis 4y ago
  Apple discontinued OSX Server because almost no one used it and it had very little value add. But also because they had discontinued any server hardware with the end of the XServe line. XServe was discontinued because they could not compete in a crowded market selling commodity Intel based servers. All of that has changed with Apple silicone, they are in a unique situation where they can compete by producing world class hardware no one else has access too with silicone processes that they have exclusive rights too.
  - Mikeb85 4y ago
    Amazon already has ARM servers in production. Plus, as we've all just mentioned, Apple has no server offering.
    - maxbond 4y ago
      Presumably they have a server distribution for their own use though, presumably they're doing lots of automated testing. And then there's iCloud, I don't know if that's just a bunch of Linux boxes but it might be MacOS boxes.
- maxbond 4y ago
  But everyone would pay (does pay) to run CI against MacOS, and they'd be in a far better position than other service providers (as they don't provide VM images but could provide them to themselves).
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Good point. But my guess is that by Apple's strategic reasoning they'd rather have devs buying (and hopefully using) Apple hardware.
- ellisv 4y ago
  On the other hand, if Apple wanted to encourage server-side Swift this would be a way to do it. I just had a shower thought the other day that with the growth of WASM, Apple could target the web as well. But ultimately I think Apple is still more focused on building consumer products rather than developer services. I'm not sure how they'd retain their identity with such a shift in focus.
  - ianai 4y ago
    Actually they could work on marrying design (their traditional client base) with some lighter development tools-cross platform. This could be marketed as a moat from AI. Possibly some good demand growth potential there. Edit-the goal would be to offer a product that makes a suitably skilled designer in the tools roughly equal to a minimally viable UI developer.
  - Mikeb85 4y ago
    > I just had a shower thought the other day that with the growth of WASM, Apple could target the web as well Lol you don't remember how Apple's been specifically trying to hold back web technologies to encourage native apps? Embracing WASM is completely against everything they've been doing for the last decade.
  - JackFr 4y ago
    > if Apple wanted to encourage server-side Swift this would be a way to do it. Apple wants money. Encouraging/discouraging server-side Swift (by itself) is orthogonal/irrelevant to making money.
Veuxdo 4y ago
Apple loves disrupting and differentiating in the consumer market. Not so much in the developer market, though. XCode, swift, etc. have always felt more like a means to an end (consumer apps for iDevices).
HDThoreaun 4y ago
Apple is a consumer company. They have no interest in dealing with businesses since they position themselves as a luxury good
- colinjoy 4y ago
  I think you may be wrong here. There is a consumerisation of the enterprise IT and Apple is happy to grab a big piece of that cake (and not unsuccessful) when it comes to push their devices into the business market. If they had no interest in dealing with businesses, they'd not invest in enabling companies to manage large fleets of Apple devices. https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/welcome/web https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/welcome/web
  - HDThoreaun 4y ago
    Eh, I don’t think apple is doing that specifically for businesses as much as to unlock businesses to give their employees a luxury perk.
    - colinjoy 4y ago
      Even if that was true (which I believe it is not), wouldn't that already constitute "interest in dealing with businesses"? They want businesses to buy iDevices and use them for business purposes. Whatever you think on this, you should perhaps rethink after taking a look at Apple's own reporting and their press releases concerning business and enterprise customers. https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/20/apples-enterprise-evolution/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/20/apples-enterprise-evolutio...
formerly_proven 4y ago
Doesn't Apple itself use AWS and GCP?
numbsafari 4y ago
I think you are correct. Most of the other replies seem to think that what Apple would do is like EC2 on up, but what you are saying is “would do something different”, so not EC2. In a sense they have started to do this in small steps… iCloud Sync, and the new cloud-based service built into Xcode. I think we would see Apple do more things like GCP’s original vision of App Engine, focused on improving the delivery story for Xcode developers. Write swift actors that run not on the device, but in the cloud. The code could be shipped as part of your app and run in the context of the device user. Or they could offer a shared compute that is, again, integrated into your App Store submission somehow, or maybe is a separate submission, but tied into your Xcode project. I don’t see them offering a generic hosted VM solution. As you said, it’s too commodity and not worth iterating on for Apple.
- colinjoy 4y ago
  While AWS, GCP and Azure are all moving towards offering more higher level services(?), I think it is fair to say that when "competing with AWS" is on the table, people associate it with IaaS/PaaS offerings. Providing more cloud services for the niche of mac developers is not "competing with AWS", is it?
colinjoy 4y ago
I think it is more likely that we will see an Apple Coffee Machine. I could see them utilizing their silicone expertises and some creative thinking to launch an espresso capsule subscription unlike what is currently available. This, or any other first world problem that Phil might run into on a Sunday morning :) Why would they choose to not focus their expertise on where they make metric tons of money already? What's more compelling about competing with AWS, Azure and GCP on IaaS margins than to keep on doing what works? I expect Apple to expand into more and more consumer products to augment their existing offering, not start something completely unrelated.

Mikeb85 4y ago

> I think we are more likely to see Apple enter this market than Meta Not a chance. They're allergic to other OSes and have discontinued MacOS server.

samwillis 4y ago
Apple discontinued OSX Server because almost no one used it and it had very little value add. But also because they had discontinued any server hardware with the end of the XServe line. XServe was discontinued because they could not compete in a crowded market selling commodity Intel based servers. All of that has changed with Apple silicone, they are in a unique situation where they can compete by producing world class hardware no one else has access too with silicone processes that they have exclusive rights too.
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  Amazon already has ARM servers in production. Plus, as we've all just mentioned, Apple has no server offering.
  - maxbond 4y ago
    Presumably they have a server distribution for their own use though, presumably they're doing lots of automated testing. And then there's iCloud, I don't know if that's just a bunch of Linux boxes but it might be MacOS boxes.
maxbond 4y ago
But everyone would pay (does pay) to run CI against MacOS, and they'd be in a far better position than other service providers (as they don't provide VM images but could provide them to themselves).
- ethbr0 4y ago
  Good point. But my guess is that by Apple's strategic reasoning they'd rather have devs buying (and hopefully using) Apple hardware.
ellisv 4y ago
On the other hand, if Apple wanted to encourage server-side Swift this would be a way to do it. I just had a shower thought the other day that with the growth of WASM, Apple could target the web as well. But ultimately I think Apple is still more focused on building consumer products rather than developer services. I'm not sure how they'd retain their identity with such a shift in focus.
- ianai 4y ago
  Actually they could work on marrying design (their traditional client base) with some lighter development tools-cross platform. This could be marketed as a moat from AI. Possibly some good demand growth potential there. Edit-the goal would be to offer a product that makes a suitably skilled designer in the tools roughly equal to a minimally viable UI developer.
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  > I just had a shower thought the other day that with the growth of WASM, Apple could target the web as well Lol you don't remember how Apple's been specifically trying to hold back web technologies to encourage native apps? Embracing WASM is completely against everything they've been doing for the last decade.
- JackFr 4y ago
  > if Apple wanted to encourage server-side Swift this would be a way to do it. Apple wants money. Encouraging/discouraging server-side Swift (by itself) is orthogonal/irrelevant to making money.

Veuxdo 4y ago

Apple loves disrupting and differentiating in the consumer market. Not so much in the developer market, though. XCode, swift, etc. have always felt more like a means to an end (consumer apps for iDevices).

HDThoreaun 4y ago

Apple is a consumer company. They have no interest in dealing with businesses since they position themselves as a luxury good

colinjoy 4y ago
I think you may be wrong here. There is a consumerisation of the enterprise IT and Apple is happy to grab a big piece of that cake (and not unsuccessful) when it comes to push their devices into the business market. If they had no interest in dealing with businesses, they'd not invest in enabling companies to manage large fleets of Apple devices. https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/welcome/web https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/welcome/web
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  Eh, I don’t think apple is doing that specifically for businesses as much as to unlock businesses to give their employees a luxury perk.
  - colinjoy 4y ago
    Even if that was true (which I believe it is not), wouldn't that already constitute "interest in dealing with businesses"? They want businesses to buy iDevices and use them for business purposes. Whatever you think on this, you should perhaps rethink after taking a look at Apple's own reporting and their press releases concerning business and enterprise customers. https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/20/apples-enterprise-evolution/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/20/apples-enterprise-evolutio...

formerly_proven 4y ago

Doesn't Apple itself use AWS and GCP?

numbsafari 4y ago

I think you are correct. Most of the other replies seem to think that what Apple would do is like EC2 on up, but what you are saying is “would do something different”, so not EC2. In a sense they have started to do this in small steps… iCloud Sync, and the new cloud-based service built into Xcode. I think we would see Apple do more things like GCP’s original vision of App Engine, focused on improving the delivery story for Xcode developers. Write swift actors that run not on the device, but in the cloud. The code could be shipped as part of your app and run in the context of the device user. Or they could offer a shared compute that is, again, integrated into your App Store submission somehow, or maybe is a separate submission, but tied into your Xcode project. I don’t see them offering a generic hosted VM solution. As you said, it’s too commodity and not worth iterating on for Apple.

colinjoy 4y ago
While AWS, GCP and Azure are all moving towards offering more higher level services(?), I think it is fair to say that when "competing with AWS" is on the table, people associate it with IaaS/PaaS offerings. Providing more cloud services for the niche of mac developers is not "competing with AWS", is it?

colinjoy 4y ago

I think it is more likely that we will see an Apple Coffee Machine. I could see them utilizing their silicone expertises and some creative thinking to launch an espresso capsule subscription unlike what is currently available. This, or any other first world problem that Phil might run into on a Sunday morning :) Why would they choose to not focus their expertise on where they make metric tons of money already? What's more compelling about competing with AWS, Azure and GCP on IaaS margins than to keep on doing what works? I expect Apple to expand into more and more consumer products to augment their existing offering, not start something completely unrelated.