Apple Building Unified Cloud Platform for iCloud, iTunes, Siri and More

[MacRumors]

Apple is moving forward with plans to build a unified platform for cloud-based web services such as iCloud, iTunes and Siri over the next few years, according to The Information.

The new platform is based on Siri, which itself is powered by open source infrastructure software called Mesos on the backend, according to the report.

The system will be what’s called an “orchestrated infrastructure” that has the ability, among other things, to run Internet applications inside “containers,” which make it easier to scale the apps and make changes to them on the fly, one of these people says.

Apple is reportedly placing more emphasis on open source software in an attempt to attract open source engineers that can help improve its web services, but it remains to be seen how far the company shifts away from its deep culture of secrecy.

Apple sometimes requires engineers submitting code to open-source products to do so through a third party rather than let Apple be affiliated with the code. One person who’s been through the process says they felt that submitting code to an open-source project like Mesos or Hadoop is generally “frowned upon” by managers at Apple. But the process has gotten easier over time, people who have participated in the process say.

The paywalled report explains how Apple is slowly embracing the open source community and becoming more transparent about its open source projects. It also lists some of the open source technologies that Apple uses, including Hadoop, HBase, Elasticsearch, Reak, Kafka, Azkaban and Voldemort.

Bloomberg reported in June that Apple is building a high-speed content delivery network and planning upgrades to its data centers with more in-house equipment to better compete with Amazon, Google, Microsoft and other cloud service providers. The improved infrastructure will allow for faster web services and more efficient delivery of cloud-based content such as streaming music.

Article Link: Apple Building Unified Cloud Platform for iCloud, iTunes, Siri and More

 

[MacVault]

Headline should read: Apple STILL Trying to Figure Out the Cloud... Might Have an Update for us in a Few Years ... When Cloud is Replaced by 'Spirit Computing' HAAAAAA LOL

 

[thekeyring]

Oooh interesting. I find myself pretty much managing without using iTunes to sync my iPhone, but not quite.

The main problem is content that's from somewhere that isn't Apple. iBooks and iTunes Music live in the cloud, but the eBooks I bought elsewhere (like Harry Potter, which isn't on the iBookstore) and non-iTunes music cannot go to iCloud.

That and the bazar notion that you should pay for cloud services (like more iCloud Storage for documents & photos, Apple Music Library, etc) when they're giving software away for free. I think most of us would be more comfortable paying once a year for OS X updates than every month for iCloud.

 

[Four oF NINE]

I look forward to see what Apple will come up with to address this subject. There's a lot of room for development

 

[You are the One]

I like that. Build in Privacy in the architecture.

 

[Eithanius]

Fix iCloud first...!

 

[FieldingMellish]

Amazon has its superior ordering and streaming of content for Apple to catch up with. So easy. And reasonably priced.

 

[naeS1Sean]

Azkaban and Voldemort?? Hell Yeah!

 

[JaySoul]

ThunderBolt.
Lightning Cable.
iCloud.

How about some bloody Sunshine once in a while?

 

[John Mcgregor]

Yet we will still going to have IDs attached to different countries, no way to merge IDs and that retarded 90 days rule.

 

[clukas]

Hopefully a positive move towards better cloud services at apple.

 

[TWSS37]

No WAY this is going to be anything less than flawless

 

[furi0usbee]

Headline should read: Apple STILL Trying to Figure Out the Cloud... Might Have an Update for us in a Few Years

100000000% agree. I stay far away from any Apple service with "cloud" in the title. I would have been happy if they just copied the functionality of Dropbox, and created something as functional. But noooo. I still pay Dropbox $99/year that I would gladly pay Apple if they could every figure out the cloud.

 

[postpc]

Good idea to replace the 36K modem the POS itunes server is operating on. Has anybody ever had more excruciatingly slow shopping "experience"?

 

[aroom]

we need more free storage

 

[jayducharme]

Apple's paltry 5 GB of free storage per account makes Google look positively generous. The least Apple could do is make it 5 GB per device. That might be a small incentive to purchase more Apple products. As it is now, the more devices you buy, the less storage you end up with. Given how unstable iCloud has been, I'm not willing to pay Apple's current prices for their extra storage.

 

[Apple blogger]

Yet we will still going to have IDs attached to different countries, no way to merge IDs and that retarded 90 days rule.

I don't think that 90 days rule is still there.. I go back and forth almost everyday!

 

[Apple blogger]

I

Apple's paltry 5 GB of free storage per account makes Google look positively generous. The least Apple could do is make it 5 GB per device. That might be a small incentive to purchase more Apple products. As it is now, the more devices you buy, the less storage you end up with. Given how unstable iCloud has been, I'm not willing to pay Apple's current prices for their extra storage.

I find the current pricing pretty cool! With $1 a month I can get 20( now 50) GB... How is it bad?

 

[KALLT]

Given how unstable iCloud has been, I'm not willing to pay Apple's current prices for their extra storage.

If it’s not good enough for you then it’s not good enough. $1 a month for 50 GB of storage is a fair deal. For that you get storage from a service that isn’t primarily funded by advertising and has a vested interest in getting access to your information for deep analysis.

 

[zephonic]

What I find weird is Apple announced last week that iCloud storage would be upgraded to 50GB for $0.99 p/m etc. but when I look at the upgrade options on ANY of my devices, it's still at 20GB for $0.99 p/m etc.

Or is the new storage plan only available to new device purchases?

And I agree with the idea that free storage should be 5GB per device.

 

[KALLT]

What I find weird is Apple announced last week that iCloud storage would be upgraded to 50GB for $0.99 p/m etc. but when I look at the upgrade options on ANY of my devices, it's still at 20GB for $0.99 p/m etc.

It’s because it hasn’t been released yet. I read somewhere that it will be offered next week.

 

[John Mcgregor]

I don't think that 90 days rule is still there.. I go back and forth almost everyday!

You can change ids on the same device as many times as you want, but for 90 days you will have no automatic downloads and icloud music library. which is *********.

 

[Palliser]

Headline should read: Apple STILL Trying to Figure Out the Cloud... Might Have an Update for us in a Few Years

Hear Hear! Nailed it.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

...and hire more people.

 

[boston04and07]

One thing that I hope they address soon is the fact that we can't merge or permanently link Apple IDs. I'm in a situation that I know a lot of others here are too. I was an early adopter of .mac, back in the days when it wasn't free. I got my iTunes store account after that, but didn't want to use my .Mac email in case I ever needed or wanted to stop paying for .Mac. Then, a few years later, when iCloud went free, I tried switching my iTunes store email address to my new iCloud address, but was told that I couldn't, because iCloud already *was* its own independent Apple ID and you can't merge them. So now, I have two Apple IDs - one tied to my ever-growing iTunes account, and the other is my daily iCloud account, which handles mail, calendars, syncing, etc.

The worst part is that this means I can't use the family sharing in Apple Music, since the iCloud account I'm signed into on all my devices is different than the one I actually use for iTunes. Super annoying...I hope they address this at some point.

The main problem is content that's from somewhere that isn't Apple. iBooks and iTunes Music live in the cloud, but the eBooks I bought elsewhere (like Harry Potter, which isn't on the iBookstore) and non-iTunes music cannot go to iCloud.

This! It's so annoying. They've made iBooks the main built in way to view and store PDFs on iOS, but they don't back them up to the cloud or sync them to other devices. I lost a bunch of stuff that way when I had to restore from a backup and didn't realize that none of my PDFs were in that backup or living in the cloud already