Amazon AWS and its new Mac instances: Run macOS in the cloud

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Amazon blog:

Over the last couple of years, AWS users have told us that they want to be able to run macOS on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). We’ve asked a lot of questions to learn more about their needs, and today I am pleased to introduce you to the new Mac instance!

And:

Powered by Mac mini hardware and the AWS Nitro System, you can use Amazon EC2 Mac instances to build, test, package, and sign Xcode applications for the Apple platform including macOS, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, watchOS, and Safari. The instances feature an 8th generation, 6-core Intel Core i7 (Coffee Lake) processor running at 3.2 GHz, with Turbo Boost up to 4.6 GHz. There’s 32 GiB of memory and access to other AWS services including Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), Amazon Elastic File System (EFS), Amazon FSx for Windows File Server, Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), AWS Systems Manager, and so forth.

The thing that’s not clear to me is specifics on pricing. I suspect these details will emerge over time.

But if this interests you, definitely spend some time reading:

  • This blog post from MacStadium. Note that MacStadium has ordered 600+ M1 Mac minis, as compared to the AWS Intel Coffee Lake machines. Don’t miss the discussion of the new “Leasing for Permitted Developer Services” paragraph added to Apple’s license agreement.

  • Also worth reading is the back-and forth comments on Hacker News, with a response from MacStadium’s Brian Stucki.

And, finally: