Report: Apple wanted to join the cloud business

Did Apple want to become a kind of Amazon Web Services (AWS)? At least that emerges from a new report. The Silicon Valley specialist sheet The information reportsThat the idea of ​​offering rental servers in the cloud was discussed as part of the service department of the iPhone Group-at least until mid-2024. However, an important manager who had spoken out for the project should have already left 2023 Apple: Michael Abbott, once Vice President of Cloud Engineering. Among other things, he was responsible for infrastructure services such as iCloud, Facetime or iMessage.

Offer for developers

Apple’s idea for a professional cloud service was apparently available to provide developers rent infrastructure-based on their own server with efficient M chips from the group. A complete portfolio should be offered to be able to handle the hosting page of apps. The development of Apple’s know-how with services such as Apple Music, Apple TV+ or Apple Wallet could have benefited. Apple is currently trying to bring more developers to the use of his in -house programming language Swift.

Amazon was very similar when the Amazon Web Services introduced 23 years ago, as the Apple now planned: its own infrastructure was opened for third parties. Google Cloud works similarly. Apple could have (significantly) increase its sales in the service division with a cloud computing service.

Discussions are still over

Apple operates a mixture of its own cloud infrastructure and purchased servers, including AWS and Google Cloud. The systems were further expanded for its Apple Intelligence, including with the service Private Cloud Compute (PCC), in which AI inquiries are outsourced to server. Here, too, the Group uses Apple-Silicon server, partly in the form of Mac Studios.

The idea with your own cloud service provider does not seem to be buried. According to The Information, it is unclear whether the talks have actually ended internally or could be taken up again. The target group was clearly their own developers, so Apple would not have become a pure host.