Apple Goes on Cloud Computing Hiring Spree

[name99]

As usual, Tim Cook (and Eddy Cue) is late to the party. I wrote to him 7 years ago imploring him to think big and invest more in cloud technology, satellites and to expand iAds. Now, Amazon is raking in billions in 2 of those categories while Apple, once the undisputed leader in digital media, plays second fiddle to Spotify and is wasting billions on not so great video content and lags half a dozen other companies in that space, including AT&T... and if you’re behind AT&T in anything, you know it’s bad.

Apple wasted hundreds of billions buying back stock and have contributed little to moving technology forward in any meaningful way under Tim‘s watch. Sure, they did well in wearables, but I would argue that’s an outgrowth of Steve’s recipe and low risk ventures. Imagine if they had spent just a fraction of the billions they spent on stock buybacks (and beats by Dre) on building out massive data centers with amazing capabilities for consumers, developers and businesses and sat tech so we can have access to data anywhere in the world. As for advertising, I’m not a huge fan of the industry, but it could have been used as a strategic weapon against Google and the billions they could have generated could have subsidized cloud services, which in turn could have sold more hardware.

The issue is not "late to the party"; the issue is "how can we adapt the ideas of cloud computing to better match Apple's target customers and developers?"
And that's not a trivial change. Any monkey can copy what another monkey is doing, but Apple provides zero value add if all they do is provide a clone of AWS or Azure. However going beyond just cloning the competition is a much larger project than is visible to people who see AWS or Azure as the pinnacle of computing, who can't see what cluster computing, including the personal compute cluster, SHOULD be.

Apple could have copied win CE, orBlackberry, or Symbian, and shipped a phone years earlier. But the goal was not to ship the same crap as everyone else, it was to rethink every aspect of mobile computing.
This is obvious today, but would not have been obvious to someone complaining on Jan 1 2007 that Apple still hadn't shipped a phone.
Likewise iCloud as it exists today performs a completely different role for the Apple ecosystem than does a superficially similar product like OneDrive or Dropbox -- but if you don't understand HOW and WHY iCloud is a different product, you won't get how much richer and more sophisticated it is.

Apple's goal is not to provide AWS running in Apple data servers, it is to provide a cloud computing facility as different from AWS as the iPhone was from a Treo.

 

[chucker23n1]

GOTCHA! I see where you’re coming from. As Apple goes into things from a profit perspective, I’d agree they’d have to limit it in some specific way to ensure an appropriate ROI.

Yeah. I'm just not convinced they want to compete in that space. It's far away from their core competencies. The one argument I can think of is not so much "they don't do enough cloud things" (which I'm not sure I agree with; they do exactly the kinds of cloud things that make sense for their platforms?) but "iOS devices are hard to develop for because you need to buy a Mac". You can already kind of do this with something like MacStadium (rent a physical Mac mini and do whatever you want on it) or AppCenter (rent a bunch of virtualized Macs and do continuous integration on them), but a solution that integrates better would be an Apple-like win. I'm still not sure they want to do that, though: "you need to buy a Mac" is… kind of good news for Apple, rather than a counter-argument. They want to sell you that MacBook Pro as the does-it-all development workhorse, that Mac mini as a build server, or that iMac Pro or Mac Pro for high-end needs. It's only really on top of that hardware sale that I see them adding more services.
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The issue is not "late to the party"; the issue is "how can we adapt the ideas of cloud computing to better match Apple's target customers and developers?"
And that's not a trivial change. Any monkey can copy what another monkey is doing, but Apple provides zero value add if all they do is provide a clone of AWS or Azure.

Precisely.

And if they did do a clone of AWS/Azure/GCP, I don't even see them being good. Nor cheap.

It's when Apple does outside-the-box approaches that they're interesting (and frequently then imitated by competitors), not when they me-too a service. E.g., Apple Music per se is a lot like Spotify, but it's the features Spotify doesn't have that get praise, such as synchronized lyrics.

 

[Karma*Police]

The issue is not "late to the party"; the issue is "how can we adapt the ideas of cloud computing to better match Apple's target customers and developers?"
And that's not a trivial change. Any monkey can copy what another monkey is doing, but Apple provides zero value add if all they do is provide a clone of AWS or Azure. However going beyond just cloning the competition is a much larger project than is visible to people who see AWS or Azure as the pinnacle of computing, who can't see what cluster computing, including the personal compute cluster, SHOULD be.

Apple could have copied win CE, orBlackberry, or Symbian, and shipped a phone years earlier. But the goal was not to ship the same crap as everyone else, it was to rethink every aspect of mobile computing.
This is obvious today, but would not have been obvious to someone complaining on Jan 1 2007 that Apple still hadn't shipped a phone.
Likewise iCloud as it exists today performs a completely different role for the Apple ecosystem than does a superficially similar product like OneDrive or Dropbox -- but if you don't understand HOW and WHY iCloud is a different product, you won't get how much richer and more sophisticated it is.

Apple's goal is not to provide AWS running in Apple data servers, it is to provide a cloud computing facility as different from AWS as the iPhone was from a Treo.

You missed my point entirely. I never once mentioned copying others to be successful, but rather, the need to think big and take risks to disrupt industries which is what made Apple what it is today. Cloud tech was one example. If that led them down a similar path in terms of functionality as AWS and Azure for business customers, so be it. In either case, it would have been a big win for customers, developers and Apple. But they missed the boat... and yes, that’s very important for a company like Apple whose business model is to charge a premium for leading edge tech/services.

 

[Karma*Police]

Sorry, uh, when was Apple ever a leader in server hosting?

And what does AWS have to do with "digital media", whatever that even is?



I do think Apple missed the subscription boom for a few years, but Apple Music is massive now.



Er. AT&T is only "ahead" (are they, though?) through an acquisition. Apple could've bought a back catalog and chose not to. And AT&T actually has a difficult task ahead of building up a brand without tarnishing the good name of HBO. So far, they seem to be doing a so-so job at that.



Sorry, what? You don't get to have it both ways.

If they're "an outgrowth of Steve's recipe", then how is Tim doing anything wrong?



OK, but… why?

This seems like a "be more like every single other tech company out there, Apple!" argument, but also "be more like Steve, who was… uhhh… not at all like every single other tech company out there, but also be like that!!"

We've had plenty of that in that in the 90s ("Apple needs to license macOS or they're doomed"), and it was precisely not doing what everyone else did that helped Apple survive.

Hmmm... looks like you missed my point entirely. Maybe my post wasn’t clear, but it had nothing to do with copying AWS to be successful, but rather, an example of yet another missed opportunity by Tim who tends to play things too safe. Apple survived the 90’s because they took bold risks upon Steve’s return. They’re no longer doing that. How do you think Apple slowly unraveled under John Sculley? By doing a lot of what Tim is doing now. Sure, they had a few hits here and there... Mac classic and Powerbook to name a couple... Again, an outgrowth of Steve’s recipe.. or remnants of his DNA... Whatever you want to call it, but it wasn’t enough. Not when your entire business model depends on charging a premium which requires consistently leading and occasionally disrupting, which AWS and Azure have done/is doing.

Apple Music is massive?? Spotify is 2x bigger and growing faster! So is Amazon music thanks to Alexa. That was unthinkable not too long ago when Apple was the undisputed leader in digital music and video sales. Again, a symptom of Tim and company moving too slowly.

As for AT&T, it doesn’t matter how they got there, they leapfrogged Apple, period. ATV+ is no match for HBOmax. Not even close. Like I said, Apple could have used their billions to build the world’s greatest video library instead of buying back stock. They could have purchased Netflix, HBO and Time Warner by now. And you can’t tell me that Apple wouldn’t be better off with Netflix now than trying to build their own library of content, which IMO is too little too late. I have ATV+, but only because it’s free.. I certainly wouldn’t pay for it when I have far better options like Netflix, Hulu and soon, HBOMax. I honestly don’t get the point of ATV+.

 

[chucker23n1]

Hmmm... looks like you missed my point entirely. Maybe my post wasn’t clear, but it had nothing to do with copying AWS to be successful, but rather, an example of yet another missed opportunity by Tim who tends to play things too safe.

That doesn't really answer the question. What was the "missed opportunity"?

Because Apple does have cloud services.

Apple survived the 90’s because they took bold risks upon Steve’s return.

Actually, Steve also infamously killed a lot of bold risks as part of his return. He killed almost the entire Mac product line, reducing it to just a 2x2 matrix. He killed the Newton. He killed technologies like OpenDoc.

I'm not even sure what bold risk he took in the first few years. Mac OS X? That wasn't his risk to take. When he joined, the path had already been laid out that Apple would switch to a more modern OS; the only thing they wavered on was the basis: NuKernel / Copland? Be? NT? NeXT? It ended up being a mixture of NeXT and Mac OS (cf. Carbon).

They’re no longer doing that. How do you think Apple slowly unraveled under John Sculley? By doing a lot of what Tim is doing now.

Sculley also took on bold risks that he ended up not being able to handle, such as Knowledge Navigator.

Sure, they had a few hits here and there... Mac classic and Powerbook to name a couple... Again, an outgrowth of Steve’s recipe.. or remnants of his DNA... Whatever you want to call it, but it wasn’t enough. Not when your entire business model depends on charging a premium which requires consistently leading and occasionally disrupting, which AWS and Azure have done/is doing.

OK, so again: what is it you're actually suggesting? Because you're saying you're not suggesting Apple should become a cloud hosting provider, and yet you keep bringing up cloud hosting providers.

Apple Music is massive?? Spotify is 2x bigger and growing faster!

Spotify is bigger worldwide; Apple Music is bigger in the US. Which is pretty good considering they had a late start.

So is Amazon music thanks to Alexa. That was unthinkable not too long ago when Apple was the undisputed leader in digital music and video sales. Again, a symptom of Tim and company moving too slowly.

Yeah, you win. Apple should close up shop and give the money back to its shareholders.

As for AT&T, it doesn’t matter how they got there, they leapfrogged Apple, period. ATV+ is no match for HBOmax. Not even close. Like I said, Apple could have used their billions to build the world’s greatest video library instead of buying back stock. They could have purchased Netflix, HBO and Time Warner by now. And you can’t tell me that Apple wouldn’t be better off with Netflix now than trying to build their own library of content, which IMO is too little too late. I have ATV+, but only because it’s free.. I certainly wouldn’t pay for it when I have far better options like Netflix, Hulu and soon, HBOMax. I honestly don’t get the point of ATV+.

OK, I have another question: do you think Apple was number one on literally everything under Steve Jobs? Because you keep insinuating that. You do remember that, for most of Jobs's reign, the Mac was still running on PowerPC, and had way worse market share than it does now under Cook? You realize the entirety of Apple doing its own chip designs and leading ARM happened under Cook?

 

[I7guy]

Hmmm... looks like you missed my point entirely. Maybe my post wasn’t clear, but it had nothing to do with copying AWS to be successful, but rather, an example of yet another missed opportunity by Tim who tends to play things too safe. ...

Your missed opportunity for Apple, may not be in line with what they think might be their missed opportunities.

People today seem to genuinely believe Apple can't draw emojis and do software development. I can only imagine the criticism if people believe cloud development is chewing up Apple's time. /s

 

[Karma*Police]

Your missed opportunity for Apple, may not be in line with what they think might be their missed opportunities.

People today seem to genuinely believe Apple can't draw emojis and do software development. I can only imagine the criticism if people believe cloud development is chewing up Apple's time. /s

Apple gets to decide which businesses they want to pursue, but they don’t get to decide whether something was a missed opportunity or not. If they’re late to the game, it’s a missed opportunity. Period. It’s not subjective. The fact that Amazon and Microsoft have/are raking in tens of billions from their cloud business and Apple has decide now is the time to take it more seriously, means Apple knows that they’ve missed an opportunity and that it’s better to get in late than never. That doesn’t mean they haven’t thought of something new that can change the game and eventually reap massive rewards, but that still doesn’t change the fact that they missed the boat and left billions on the table.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Apple has decide now is the time to take it more seriously, means Apple knows that they’ve missed an opportunity

What do you think is the opportunity Apple missed? Bring a world leading enterprise level cloud provider? That’s so far from Apple’s core business, they were never going to be that and this hiring is not going to be about beating Amazon or Azure or Google or any other general cloud provider. It’ll likely be focused on something related to improving the reliability of iCloud and, as only Apple produces iCloud, they could wait another three years and would still have the opportunity

Now if Microsoft comes out with a new iCloud with all the features of iCloud PLUS some, and all Apple’s customers move over to Microsoft’s iCloud while Apple twiddles their fingers, yes, that would absolutely be a missed opportunity.

 

[Karma*Police]

That doesn't really answer the question. What was the "missed opportunity"?

Because Apple does have cloud services.

I’m sorry, I thought it was obvious. The missed opportunity is BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars and potentially many more customers and growth opportunities. The kind of growth that has propelled Microsoft past Apple as the world’s most valuable company. Both Microsoft and Amazon are growing much faster than Apple even though their valuations are similar.

Actually, Steve also infamously killed a lot of bold risks as part of his return. He killed almost the entire Mac product line, reducing it to just a 2x2 matrix. He killed the Newton. He killed technologies like OpenDoc.

Simplifying a product line isn’t bold nor is it very risky. Killing a money-losing business and technology isn’t bold or risky when the entire business is about to go kaput.

I'm not even sure what bold risk he took in the first few years. Mac OS X? That wasn't his risk to take. When he joined, the path had already been laid out that Apple would switch to a more modern OS; the only thing they wavered on was the basis: NuKernel / Copland? Be? NT? NeXT? It ended up being a mixture of NeXT and Mac OS (cf. Carbon).

The iMac. Doesn’t seem so bold now, but completely redesigning the computer into something that no one has ever seen before was a huge risk, especially for a company that was barely holding on. In fact, Ken Segall, the creative director of their ad agency remarked that they didn’t don’t know what they were doing after he was shown the iMac, and didn’t think it would sell. But sell it did, and it turned the company’s fortunes around, which enabled them to pursue another risky venture: the iPod.

Sculley also took on bold risks that he ended up not being able to handle, such as Knowledge Navigator.

There’s bold risks and there’s rushing half-baked projects out the door, like the Newton and OpenDoc. Knowledge Navigator wasn’t a bold risk at all. It was his vision of what computers would one day become. Not much of a stretch for anyone who watched sci-fi movies if you ask me.

OK, so again: what is it you're actually suggesting? Because you're saying you're not suggesting Apple should become a cloud hosting provider, and yet you keep bringing up cloud hosting providers.

Seriously? It wasn’t enough the first two times I mentioned it? I think you need to re-read my posts because it should be clear as day what I’m suggesting and why I mentioned cloud, as an example, and because it’s on topic.

Spotify is bigger worldwide; Apple Music is bigger in the US. Which is pretty good considering they had a late start.

A late start?? Apple had a HUGE head start. They blew it by sticking to what worked instead of adapting, even though the trend towards streaming was obvious. As for “pretty good” why is that good enough for you? Blowing a 35 point lead in the 4th quarter is never good! Not to mention, they’re losing on their own home turf! They had and still have every advantage except # of users. There’s no reason they should be a distant second in this space. NONE.

OK, I have another question: do you think Apple was number one on literally everything under Steve Jobs? Because you keep insinuating that. You do remember that, for most of Jobs's reign, the Mac was still running on PowerPC, and had way worse market share than it does now under Cook? You realize the entirety of Apple doing its own chip designs and leading ARM happened under Cook?

Where did I insinuate Apple was number one in “everything“? What I *know* is that Jobs was responsible for the bold move to Intel chips. What I *know* is that buying PA semi and moving chip design in-house was a decision made by Jobs, and at the time, was Apple’s largest (and by some counts, their riskiest) acquisition. What I *believe* is that was Apple’s last big, bold move. In fact, Apple spent less than 800MM for PA Semi (1/4 of what they spent on beats by Dre), yet the PA semi is paying FAR larger dividends than the beats acquisition ever will (which IMO was a big mistake as evidenced by the success of Apple’s own branded gear). Oh, but the beats acquisition was accretive according to Cook. That’s bean counter talk for it was a safe acquisition.

 

[I7guy]

I’m sorry, I thought it was obvious. The missed opportunity is BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars and potentially many more customers and growth opportunities. The kind of growth that has propelled Microsoft past Apple as the world’s most valuable company. Both Microsoft and Amazon are growing much faster than Apple even though their valuations are similar...

You mean in the last "three days" Microsoft has overtaken Apple. My guess is Apple doesn't want that business. It's noted their wearables business are already billions and billions. Why Apple is recruiting for cloud engineers is anybody's guess, but Apple seemingly wants to offer products and not cloud services.

 

[Brien]

About time!

 

[I7guy]

Apple gets to decide which businesses they want to pursue, but they don’t get to decide whether something was a missed opportunity or not. If they’re late to the game, it’s a missed opportunity. Period. It’s not subjective. The fact that Amazon and Microsoft have/are raking in tens of billions from their cloud business and Apple has decide now is the time to take it more seriously, means Apple knows that they’ve missed an opportunity and that it’s better to get in late than never. That doesn’t mean they haven’t thought of something new that can change the game and eventually reap massive rewards, but that still doesn’t change the fact that they missed the boat and left billions on the table.

It's definitely not us observers that can say an opportunity was missed as a statement of fact. One can have their opinion and reasons as to why one believes it was a missed opportunity for Apple, but Apple may have decided it wasn't a platform they wanted to persue because they sell products not services.

But neither you or I know the ultimate reason of why this hiring is now ongoing.

 

[name99]

You missed my point entirely. I never once mentioned copying others to be successful, but rather, the need to think big and take risks to disrupt industries which is what made Apple what it is today. Cloud tech was one example. If that led them down a similar path in terms of functionality as AWS and Azure for business customers, so be it. In either case, it would have been a big win for customers, developers and Apple. But they missed the boat... and yes, that’s very important for a company like Apple whose business model is to charge a premium for leading edge tech/services.

Apple has already spent at least $5B on data centers, with another $5B or so scheduled over the next few years. I warrant you have no idea how many data centers Apple has, or where they are. You know about North Carolina or Nevada maybe but ever heard of the one in Iowa? Do you know how many there are outside the US?

You could argue that this is small money compared to what's spent by eg AWS or Google, and in a way it is; but I suspect money is being spent a lot smarter. In particular, Apple is, IMHO, investing in being able to supply its own SoCs rather than paying the Intel tax, but that's spending we won't see any evidence of until the day Apple decides to announce it...

And that's the basic problem with your analysis - you say Apple has "missed the boat", but what boat? The "provide exactly the same service as everyone else", the enterprise cloud-compute business, is not especially interesting to Apple as that business exists right now.
This is no different from saying that Apple has missed the boat in selling servers, or in selling Pages+Numbers to Enterprise. Selling those sorts of products makes zero sense for Apple -- it doesn't play to their strengths, while it forces them to engage in behavior (like very long term compatibility) that limits what they can do going forward.

 

[Karma*Police]

You mean in the last "three days" Microsoft has overtaken Apple. My guess is Apple doesn't want that business. It's noted their wearables business are already billions and billions. Why Apple is recruiting for cloud engineers is anybody's guess, but Apple seemingly wants to offer products and not cloud services.

Nope, they’ve overtaken the crown before that, but they’ve flip flopped since, but it doesn’t change the fact that MS has a better long-term growth trajectory thanks to Azure. According to the article, Apple’s hiring spree is to take on AWS, Azure and Google cloud. Some guesses are better than others, and I’d venture to guess that that’s a better guess than yours, especially given the facts...

1. The likelihood that Apple is spending lots of money to hire top talent in the cloud business just to maintain iCloud and possibly add a few features to push more hardware doesn’t make much business sense

2. The mgmt team has been pushing the services business story to investors (and customers) for several years now. Sure, wearables are doing well, but it’s the steady, recurring revenue stream from of their services business that investors appreciate

3. Apple is investing more heavily in subscription based services - iCloud storage, Apple Arcade, ATV+, Apple Music and Apple News - so it seems a reasonable guess to think that more cloud services is what Apple wants to offer

4. The pandemic has accelerated the move to cloud services and so whatever debates and paralysis by analysis that this mgmt team might have been mired in, it‘s reasonable to assume that it could have been the deciding factor to dramatically expand their cloud business, hence the timing of the hiring spree

 

[I7guy]

Nope, they’ve overtaken the crown before that, but they’ve flip flopped since, but it doesn’t change the fact that MS has a better long-term growth trajectory thanks to Azure. According to the article, Apple’s hiring spree is to take on AWS, Azure and Google cloud. Some guesses are better than others, and I’d venture to guess that that’s a better guess than yours, especially given the facts...

1. The likelihood that Apple is spending lots of money to hire top talent in the cloud business just to maintain iCloud and possibly add a few features to push more hardware doesn’t make much business sense

2. The mgmt team has been pushing the services business story to investors (and customers) for several years now. Sure, wearables are doing well, but it’s the steady, recurring revenue stream from of their services business that investors appreciate

3. Apple is investing more heavily in subscription based services - iCloud storage, Apple Arcade, ATV+, Apple Music and Apple News - so it seems a reasonable guess to think that more cloud services is what Apple wants to offer

4. The pandemic has accelerated the move to cloud services and so whatever debates and paralysis by analysis that this mgmt team might have been mired in, it‘s reasonable to assume that it could have been the deciding factor to dramatically expand their cloud business, hence the timing of the hiring spree

Basically one educated opinion against other educated guesses. It's fun to discuss hypotheticals. I agree with the last point about cloud services and Apple beefing up their cloud products to support the ecosystem, which is potentially why Apple is hiring.

 

[name99]

Hmmm... looks like you missed my point entirely. Maybe my post wasn’t clear, but it had nothing to do with copying AWS to be successful, but rather, an example of yet another missed opportunity by Tim who tends to play things too safe. Apple survived the 90’s because they took bold risks upon Steve’s return. They’re no longer doing that. How do you think Apple slowly unraveled under John Sculley? By doing a lot of what Tim is doing now. Sure, they had a few hits here and there... Mac classic and Powerbook to name a couple... Again, an outgrowth of Steve’s recipe.. or remnants of his DNA... Whatever you want to call it, but it wasn’t enough. Not when your entire business model depends on charging a premium which requires consistently leading and occasionally disrupting, which AWS and Azure have done/is doing.

Apple Music is massive?? Spotify is 2x bigger and growing faster! So is Amazon music thanks to Alexa. That was unthinkable not too long ago when Apple was the undisputed leader in digital music and video sales. Again, a symptom of Tim and company moving too slowly.

As for AT&T, it doesn’t matter how they got there, they leapfrogged Apple, period. ATV+ is no match for HBOmax. Not even close. Like I said, Apple could have used their billions to build the world’s greatest video library instead of buying back stock. They could have purchased Netflix, HBO and Time Warner by now. And you can’t tell me that Apple wouldn’t be better off with Netflix now than trying to build their own library of content, which IMO is too little too late. I have ATV+, but only because it’s free.. I certainly wouldn’t pay for it when I have far better options like Netflix, Hulu and soon, HBOMax. I honestly don’t get the point of ATV+.

You seem to have a very naive view of business. You speak the language of "winning", and you fetishize size over more sophisticated metrics like RoI.
Why should Apple CARE about being larger than Spotify? Most of Spotify subscribers are in the ad tier, bringing in little revenue. The point of Apple Music is to make the Apple eco-system desirable, and to turn a slight profit; nothing beyond that has value. Likewise for Apple TV+.

Apple is not in COMPETITION with Spotify or HBO! Don't you get that?
Apple WINS by having Spotify and HBO provide great services to Apple customers, so great that those customers buy more iPads and Apple TVs and Apple Watches. The PRIMARY point of Music and TV+ is to set standards, to create a baseline so that the larger content providers don't get lazy and ship bad experiences on Apple.
TV+ exists so that I can ask Netflix "why is your Apple TV experience so crappy compared to the TV+ (and HBO and Prime) experiences?"

Try following a more intelligent class of business pundit, because they guys you are listening to right now are flat out idiots who understand nothing about how Apple works, or in general how sophisticated businesses work.
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Apple gets to decide which businesses they want to pursue, but they don’t get to decide whether something was a missed opportunity or not. If they’re late to the game, it’s a missed opportunity. Period. It’s not subjective. The fact that Amazon and Microsoft have/are raking in tens of billions from their cloud business and Apple has decide now is the time to take it more seriously, means Apple knows that they’ve missed an opportunity and that it’s better to get in late than never. That doesn’t mean they haven’t thought of something new that can change the game and eventually reap massive rewards, but that still doesn’t change the fact that they missed the boat and left billions on the table.

This makes zero sense.
Was it a missed opportunity that MS provided specs for a Tablet PC in 2001, with products shipping in 2003, while Apple only shipped the iPad in 2010?
There have been plenty of product categories where Apple was late (smartPhone, digital audio player, smart watch, VR glasses) or never showed up (netbook, webPC). Were those all lost opportunities?

For someone who goes on and on about how Steve Jobs was better than Tim Cook, you seem to have forgotten the single most important thing Jobs said, something I perhaps remember because I was in the crowd:
'
"Focusing is about saying 'no,'" the late co-founder explained at Apple's 1997 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). "You've got to say 'no, no, no' and when you say 'no,' you piss off people."
'

 

[chucker23n1]

Simplifying a product line isn’t bold nor is it very risky.

That was my point. You said Jobs took bold risks; I pointed out that, actually, in many ways, Jobs did the opposite.

 

[Tech198]

iCloud reminds me lots of connected roads to a single point all inter-mingled

 

[MacBH928]

I think its time for Apple to go from B2C to B2B, they wan to infinitely expand in the consumer electronics world but there is a limit. There is a ton of money and market to gain in business-to-business, 40% of the web is run by AWS.

This is a more believable option and vision than an "electric car" from a company that does not make moving vehicles of any kind or has any electric technologies(unless you count cellphone batteries)

 

[TheTarHeel9]

This seems odd since Apple isn't growing in the DC space and is outsourcing more and more to AWS and Google.

 

[chucker23n1]

This seems odd since Apple isn't growing in the DC space and is outsourcing more and more to AWS and Google.

This story is literally a sign that they are growing in the DC space.

 

[UKgaryb]

This story is literally a sign that they are growing in the DC space.

It doesn't necessarily mean they are growing the number of DC's, more that they are modernising the workloads that run in the existing DC's.

If they were to migrate from AWS/GCP/Azure -> Apple DC's they would probably need to grow physically, but with moves to Kubernetes and a proper fleet management they could do a lot better capacity management

 

[chucker23n1]

It doesn't necessarily mean they are growing the number of DC's, more that they are modernising the workloads that run in the existing DC's.

Maybe. We really don’t have much info beyond “Apple is hiring engineers”.

 

[gnasher729]

Cloud Xcode development? Some folks have mentioned this as a way to bring Xcode to the iPad, perhaps the back ends for all their pro efforts? (No more Apple hardware required)

Huh? An iPad is absolutely powerful enough to run Xcode. What's missing is a good keyboard and one or two good monitors, and you won't find that in the cloud.

 

[TheTarHeel9]

It doesn't necessarily mean they are growing the number of DC's, more that they are modernising the workloads that run in the existing DC's.

If they were to migrate from AWS/GCP/Azure -> Apple DC's they would probably need to grow physically, but with moves to Kubernetes and a proper fleet management they could do a lot better capacity management

Correct. Apple is closing Newark DC next year and Mesa, Prineville and Reno have zero growth in past year +.