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Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

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Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#371

Post by [deleted] »

twistedpair wrote: post #336
coder543 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this at all MacStadium "pretending" to follow the rules? At worst, this is GitHub violating the rules. MacStadium is renting those macs to a single customer for longer than 24 hours. MacStadium is following the rules. MacStadium is just providing a platform. You're not really expecting MacStadium to snoop on each customer's usage and business model to enforce Apple's rules? AWS certainly won't be doing that. I…

> I don't understand why your comment is trying so hard to frame MacStadium as hypocrites. MacStadium customer here. It's an arm's length setup. They don't ask what you're doing, just give you the keys to the machines. BUT, when MacStadium's (likely) biggest customer is running thousands of hosts for CI jobs, and even lists you as the vendor in their docs, it's perfectly obvious that multiple end user jobs are being…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#372

Post by gizmodo59 »

withinrafael wrote: post #220

GitHub has been doling out tiny macOS runners in virtual machines for a bit now [1] (seemingly in violation of macOS SLA), and these were hosted on MacStadium [2]! So for MacStadium to come out and pretend they were following the rules the entire time is disappointing. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20200511183317if_/https://github.... [2] http://web.archive.org/web/20201108115438/https://docs.githu...

The limitation is only from Big Sur. AWS chose to do it on Catalina so that customers may not experience a big change later on. This means any provider who uses < Big Sur is in compliance.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#373

Post by cmiles74 »

BillinghamJ wrote: post #236
saagarjha wrote: post #172

An interesting offering from Amazon that is crippled by Apple and MacStadium, who deserve to be raked over the coals for their recent EULA changes. Just read the post on MacStadium's blog: https://blog.macstadium.com/blog/developers-big-sur-and-vind... Under the new agreement, you must: * Rent to only one organization * Rent for 24 hours at the minimum * Use it for some set of "approved" development work …among other…

This seems like an absolutely bizarre take on the situation. You don't really think Apple added those EULA terms for MacStadium now right? They were clearly added for AWS! MacStadium just happens to be happy that there's crystal-clear red lines. These rules are 100% down to Apple, absolutely nothing to do with AWS and MacStadium in terms of decision-making. Apple don't want the perceived value of their machines to be…

I have to disagree with this idea that Apple Computer is concerned with performance on hardware that's being shared through a service like AWS. If Apple has any concrete concerns, it's that developers would prefer to pay Amazon for the time they need on a Mac rather than purchase an entire Mac for themselves. It's an anti-developer move.

This idea that Apple is worried about an EC2 instance replacing a personal Mac is way, way, out there. What is much more likely is that a developer buys a lower cost, not Apple laptop and uses that to connect to a Mac on EC2 for the few tasks that require a Mac. Again, it's an move _against_ developers, it's not designed to make the lives of developers any easier.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#374

Post by PopeDotNinja »

coldtea wrote: post #355
PopeDotNinja wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a case can be made to eliminate the 24 hour minimum by focusing on reducing carbon emissions Why force someone to rent for a day when they need it for an hour? “This 23 hours of global warming is proudly sponsored by the Appleverse.”

Let's start by killing crypto-coin, which is basically global-warming-as-money...

True dat

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#375

Post by Spivak »

andybak wrote: post #296
lukeramsden wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why am I paying for the other 21 hours? Unsure if you've seen the comments elsewhere in the thread but in case you haven't and this is a genuine question - because Apple's EULA forces Amazon to do this.

Yes - I did know that. I guess my question is directed more at Apple. Why stipulate this unless they want to hobble reasonable use-cases or inflate usage arbitrarily. Is the answer simply "Because they can and they like money?"

But only as a second-order effect. This will lead to needing to buy more Apple hardware to support such a service but it's the service provider that rakes in the cash (or doesn't because people don't need 24h) as a result of this EULA.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#376

Post by kevincox »

snazz wrote: post #338
jtdev wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are web apps crippled on iOS?

MobileSafari doesn't support a number of "PWA" features that Android Chrome does. Push notifications, for example, always require a mobile app on iOS (which I think is a good thing, personally, but I can understand other perspectives).

It is behind a permission so it isn't that any website can just start sending you notifications.

(Although personally I'm not a fan of phone notifications either)

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#377

Post by hibbelig »

BGStucki wrote: post #245
saagarjha wrote: post #172

An interesting offering from Amazon that is crippled by Apple and MacStadium, who deserve to be raked over the coals for their recent EULA changes. Just read the post on MacStadium's blog: https://blog.macstadium.com/blog/developers-big-sur-and-vind... Under the new agreement, you must: * Rent to only one organization * Rent for 24 hours at the minimum * Use it for some set of "approved" development work …among other…

Brian Stucki here. If I had the power over Apple that you think I do, I definitely would have pushed for iPhone Socks first. Joking aside, the software license agreement was certainly a cause for personal celebration. It might be helpful for you to compare macOS 11 to previous versions. (Linked in my post.) If I/MacStadium did anything, we showed that there was a need for this sort of service and that both Apple and…

Your article sounds as if it had previously not been allowed to offer such services. Or was it a grey zone before?

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#378

Post by jleach82 »

jtdev wrote: post #333
kevincox wrote: post #327

I find it disgusting that Apple can force people to jump though these hoops while paying them a huge premium for sub-standard hardware[1] so that these people can develop for their platform. Not only are they bleeding the developers at build, test and sale time. They are providing a shitty experience while doing it. Of course from an economic point of view they are right! For businesses it still makes sense to do thi…

How are web apps crippled on iOS?

Safari support (and even chrome, FF on macs) is horrible. They've become the new IE in terms of typical web programming that works everywhere except that platform. In the past year, every browser-based support issue we've had to deal with across multiple projects is due to Safari not handling things the way the rest of the browsers do.

Worse, there's issues that are specific to Apple devices (iPad rendering of certain CSS, works everywhere else, including Mac's own emulators, but renders fubar on the actual iPad), leaving the debugging/fixing process a trial and error issue. It's horrible.

And even worse, this can't be debugged on anything but a Mac anymore, so if you don't use Mac as your primary dev platform, you're near-screwed when it comes to trying to resolve web app issues that only arise on their platform.

Then there's mobile app management, which is just as bad in it's own way. We had an app on the App Store for three years, then all of a sudden during one minor maintenance update they decided it wasn't allowed on the store any more and immediately pulled it. Thousands of business users affected, and two months to get the app propped back up on a custom business distribution channel, thousands of dollars worth of process re-development, etc.

Apple is the absolute worst platform for business-productivity programming. They screw the developers with a far stiffer rod than any other company has ever done.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#379

Post by andybak »

Spivak wrote: post #375
andybak wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - I did know that. I guess my question is directed more at Apple. Why stipulate this unless they want to hobble reasonable use-cases or inflate usage arbitrarily. Is the answer simply "Because they can and they like money?"

But only as a second-order effect. This will lead to needing to buy more Apple hardware to support such a service but it's the service provider that rakes in the cash (or doesn't because people don't need 24h) as a result of this EULA.

Surely this just means that more people won't bother and we're back to hackintoshes or upgrading old Apple hardware. Making something uneconomical isn't a great strategy to drive growth.

Re: Amazon EC2 Mac Instances

#380

Post by shiftpgdn »

hobs wrote: post #361
coldtea wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> aside from being a developer for Apple's platforms who occasionally looks around for CI services So, you give him all this shit and you're not even using his service? > There's still a huge hole for a service that lets you rent a Mac for the a couple minutes so you can build your Xcode project. It's not your fault that doesn't exist, it's Apple's. If we're talking for CI of builds, sure. But in that case, one would…

I like you and I think your posts are generally high quality, so I am going to say that an elitist "screw people who cant afford an overpriced mac" is not a good thing imo. Will we get some lower quality apps, sure, do those already exist? yeah. It just sounds like gatekeeping for not much benefit.

It's important developers (or their QA people) be able to use the device they're publishing to.
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