how does this affect companies like buddybuild that offer CI/CD for ios? has it commoditized them, or does it give them a lower cost way to run their cluster?
Amazon EC2 Mac Instances
131–140 of 511 posts
Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does this EURA works to effectively kill handy macOS CI service like CircleCI and force users to use VM rental service like this?
I don't see why you couldn't run a CI server as long as you don't let the clients access the machine.
Circle CI does let clients access the machine IIRC you can SSH into the host if the job fails and tinker around to debug issues.
Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are you developing iOS apps without xcode?
You only need it for compiling. There are plenty of cross platform frameworks that dont require to develop with xcode - and that's good in my opinion. I built all my apps this way and faced the same problem as OP - so had to buy a Mac mini. It was the cheapest option ~8 years ago and I still use it today for the same purpose - just for compiling. I assume there are probably more of us.
how are you developing for ios without frequent compiling and testing?
Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances
#134I can't seem to find pricing for this - anyone understand AWS better than me? It's not listed on their dedicated host pricing page at https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/dedicated-hosts/pricing/ , and if I go through the web console to create an instance, I'm prompted to create a Mac dedicated host without any indication of how much I'd be paying.
per techcrunch article linked elsewhere in the thread $1.083/h
Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances
#135This seems a bit half-baked and niche at the moment. You have to rent a whole machine for 24 hours, which is expensive and prevents on-demand scaling. I wonder if Apple and Amazon are just dipping their toes in to prepare for a deeper collaboration in future.
Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does this EURA works to effectively kill handy macOS CI service like CircleCI and force users to use VM rental service like this?
I don't see why you couldn't run a CI server as long as you don't let the clients access the machine.
It's reasonable to think running CI service is similar to just running httpd. But what divides? Anyway CI service runs Apple software like Xcode. Even httpd uses Apple's TCP stack.
Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances
#137It seems like this directly ties back to Apple’s recent policy changes [0]. The details line up exactly, including: - You must rent them for at least 24 hours at a time. - You must rent out one machine per end user. I just feel sorry for all the smaller providers who have done this for years. I wonder if this was Apple’s update prompting AWS, or AWS pushing Apple to make the change — or both. [0]: https://blog.macsta…
Azure piplines has had the ability for quite a while to use macos agents...
Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's against Apple's T&Cs, though. If you're doing it at home by yourself, who cares. But a company that's interested in automated testing etc. isn't going to see it as an answer.
Get an old old old Mac pro from ages ago. Upgrade its motherboard. Then upgrade its RAM. Then upgrade its hard drive. Then upgrade its power supply. It will still be an "Apple-branded computer" because of its case. It will just have received a bunch of upgrades. Big "haha" to them. (Or if you're actually a corporation just buy a Mac.)
That sounds like a waste of time and money.
Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances
#139I guess this confirms 10gbe m1 minis in 2021?
Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kind of hilarious. This is barely cloud computing compared to the rest of ec2, which has per-second billing...
It's going to be out of their hands on this one. Apple have pretty strong EULAs. Microsoft's licensing for clouds is also a pain in the arse. You (the cloud platform) have to pay for a full months license the moment an instance is created. The way it's structured you have some wriggle room, e.g. you have your placement algorithm land new instances on where Windows instances have already been in a given month, so you…
Strategically it makes sense. Apple is a hardware company, so making it difficult to run their OS in the cloud means more people need to keep buying their hardware. Microsoft has their own cloud, where they don't have to deal with the license requirements they force on other cloud providers, which gives them a competitive advantage over their competitors (when it comes to windows servers). The key is that these companies don't just sell operating systems. Red Hat on the other hand, which doesn't have competing market pressures, is much more friendly to licensing in a cloud environment.