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Apple Creating Cloud-Based Mac?
hostedftp writes "In speculation news making the rounds — Apple's recent activities in the Cloud has been leading to conclusions of the what the innovative giant plans to unleash in 2011. The most recent news of Apple applying and securing a patent for a network-boosted OS has made speculators believe Apple is going to launch a Cloud-based operating system for the Mac."
And St. Jobs spake thus "Release the iCloud Unified Networking Topology.
And it was good.
St. Jobs was gay and magnanimous. His works doth bring joy and KoolAid of Orange to his flock.
Much loved was he.
St. Jobs thus commanded "Bring forth sweaters of turtles and necks and blackness."
And his wish was fulfilled.
"Let only I be the one to don such garment!"
And a young boy in the throng proclaimed "St. Jobs is without clothing!"
St. Jobs lay hands on the boy which caused great convulse.
The boy cried out "Let me drink of ye KoolAid!"
And St. Jobs smiled as yonder Cap of Market topped 300 billion shekels.
Trolling is a art,
idevices are 2/3 of apple's revenue. Mac's are like the bastard step kids that no one cares about anymore
Commentators believe the patent could allow Apple to create a subscription-based cloud OS that gives it more control over its users.
More control over its users.
On top of that, this whole cloud privacy relationship concept needs to be addressed -- especially when people see commercials advocating it without fully explaining that your photo, data, computations, whatever are being moved to and performed on other machine external to yours. That single Microsoft commercial has further muddied up how people understand what the cloud is.
I applaud Apple for their foresight and innovation in this but I see it in line with Tim Wu's fears of Apple further controlling your data and information. I'd have the same fears with Chrome OS and Windows utilizing a cloud of computers just the same. This ideal of executing what you want on your hardware in your property seems to be dying. And with it, privacy or any desire thereof.
My work here is dung.
This is why marijuana is bad for you. It allows people to come up with even more stupid thoughts than they can do on their own without the use of mind altering drugs.
That data center is for a revamp of Mobileme(a product that should be free), as well as storage for the new Mac App store.
Even ChromeOS which runs in the cloud, really is a cloud based OS. The OS is on the hardware which access the cloud for Data. All of it from Websites that already have that data.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Why does everything have to do with networking need to have the word "cloud" in it? Argh!
Since the blog talking about the cloud has seemingly dissipated, I have to wonder what a "Cloud Based OS" even would mean, if that's even a thing.
To put things in more practical and less obscure speech, I think what it means is that something very like Dropbox will be more integrated into the system - and that possibly Apple will offer something like network based backup of application data for iOS devices.
To me the "cloud" of any value, basically ends up being network storage of some flavor.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It reminds me of an old (and unintentionally hilarious) Crucial memory ad: "Your computer...at Internet speed!"
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
not that
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
...to offer additional processing capabilities via the internet for iOS devices running professional level software, aka "dumb tablet terminals" with their own A4 processors and phase out the Intel based open Mac's we have all come to love and enjoy. The walled garden gets even more walled in.
Oh well, Windows 7 and Linux here we come.
"Bootcamp" and the "MacAppStore" was the obvious signs the Woz effect has worn off the Jobster.
It is the dream of all software companies to get products that generate recurring revenue indefinitely. Looks like this might fit that bill.
I'm going to name my next child "Cloudy McCloudster" ... come to think of it I better go register that domain right now.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Is it`cuz I`m not on a Mac.
Sorry guys, the URL for the link to the Tim Wu story is Apple the No. 1 Danger To Net Freedom.
Has anyone talked to Adrian Paul?
We're on our way to a Clan Cloud.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I'm not worried about this. Apple's history with online services is pretty lackluster. If there's one thing that they can screw up, it's this.
Since the blog talking about the cloud has seemingly dissipated, I have to wonder what a "Cloud Based OS" even would mean, if that's even a thing.
Yeah, it sounds really nebulous.
Are you adequate?
ISP caps and slow down speeds will NOT work this.
A 1920 x 1200 desktop at 32 bits a lot of data.
In some area all you can get is DSL any where from 1.5 to 6 meg max. maybe 6 meg will work ok but some people can only get 1.5 or 3 meg dsl.
Cable has higher download speeds but a full block on a Node trying to use this at the same time.
satellite broadband with the FAP does not kill this the lag will.
3G 5GB cap will led to big costs for data over 5GB. And ATT's 2GB then $10 per GB will may this cost so much people will get a PC.
And if you have 2-3 systems then you may need FIOS just make it work good. And Fios is not all over.
Are we reaching Peak Cloud?
We used to call them X-terminals.
Diskless, boots off the network and connects to a central machine. In this case, the "central" is "distributed", and it may or may not have a disk.
In short, the finest technology from the 80s is back. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
This ideal of executing what you want on your hardware in your property seems to be dying.
It's not dying, and will never die.
What is happening instead is that consumer choices are EXPANDING. Expanding to included choices where they really can have computers that are more secure and managed - as a side effect, they are also locked down. But it is a choice that I think is good for people to have, because most people simply cannot manage computers.
On the Mac, soon, you'll have a choice to get applications from anywhere - or to get them from a central source that is somewhat vetted, and furthermore ends the hodge-podge of software update mechanisms to one where you get updates when they arrive without fuss. That's a huge boon to most people.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple Patent Hints at Net-Booting Cloud Strategy - About 16 hours ago.
While I would not be surprised to see a cloud based OS sometime in the future, I doubt that the new data center is aimed at that technology.
Apple seems to be moving towards a cloud storage model now. With the new Apple TV lacking a hard drive, and the existence of Mobile me with default directories for applications, media, and backup files but much to low a space to do any of those adequately, I'd say it's more likely that the new data center is aimed at expanding the Mobile me offerings.
I see the path as something like this:
1. the cloud as a mirror for small number of high use files (where we are now)
2. the cloud as a mirror for all files (when you could backup an enteire hard drive to the cloud)
3. the cloud as primary storage with local storage as a mirror for offline use (as 2 but after adoption and changing OS default behavior some)
4. Cloud boot as an option
5. the cloud as primary storage with local storage only for high use files (cloud storage larger than local hard drives on unupgraded macs)
6. cloud booting as default with local boot as option
7. total thin terminal (little to no local storage, boots from the cloud, stores everything in the cloud, can't be used offline)
If you ask Apple really nicely, they'll let you boot it up.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
We used to call them X-terminals.
Diskless, boots off the network and connects to a central machine. In this case, the "central" is "distributed", and it may or may not have a disk.
In short, the finest technology from the 80s is back. :-P
We called them 3270 terminals. Connect to a local cluster controller(more or less a stat mux, not a heck of a lot more), then to a NCP, then via VTAM back to the mainframe, probably a system 370 series although memory fades with time. Oddly enough that is exactly the same config I had in the mid 90s except they emulated the 3270 on PCs, mostly.
In short, the finest technology from the 70s is back :-P
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Obviously, they need a bigger cloud.
sudo eat my shorts
But look at the Graphics of Tron Legacy!
Oh - sorry - you meant Apple's equally slick graphics!
Just don't think too hard what it all means.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Slashdot has not hand an Apple or cloud article in ages.
Their they're doing there hair.
For company use I can see some benefit.
For home consumer use, I can't see the return a user gets for relying on something like this. Especially not as people move to laptops which are not connected all the time. Sure you can cache for there's nothing more obnoxious than having MOST applications cached only to find the one you really wanted to use, was not cached just as you are getting into your international plane flight...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes and expect clouds to be pushed very hard by all those who want to control what you see, hear or write on the web.
The only the will ever be able to control what you do, is by using central repository & computing power.
I don't have an intelligent phone, so I need to be.
Holy crap - this is the combination of my two least liked things - Apple and "The Cloud". The only way that they could possibly make this less attractive to me is if it quoted the bible to you when you when you booted it up..
What is happening instead is that consumer choices are EXPANDING.
I liken it to Facebook's many privacy debacles. First let me explain how Facebook -- and I really think this is all Zuckerberg -- works. They want to increase information flow on Facebook. Even private information. But they realize that if they give the user a choice nobody's going to 'take the plunge' and the feature will largely be left as opt-in but never used. So they make it automatic and they deal with the privacy issue after it's been activated across the board. They put on a show about how they hear the users and now you have an option to disable that but it's not disabled because people have been living with it for a couple weeks and by and large nothing seriously bad has happened -- yet. A good example is the news feed debacle that caused users outrage and protests. But now everyone uses it. How did that happen? More importantly: could it have happened at all had not Zuckerberg stood up and made a decision for hundreds of millions of users? I think that answer is "no."
When I see the Windows commercial, I don't see an option. I see a feature. I see a feature like Facebook's News Feed. It's being marketed as a feature of Windows 7. The woman is using Windows 7 and then she says "To the cloud" real James Bond like and suddenly we're "in the cloud." And that's Windows 7. People then want that. There's no "I just need to upload my photo to Google's Picassa" or any sort of steps warning the user what exactly is happening in the background. No, it's all streamlined feature rich marketing crap. Are they explaining this can be disabled? No, we'll do that later. Where's my data? Who cares? You're in the cloud, you're sexy, you're hip -- privacy is old school for the squares!
On the Mac, soon, you'll have a choice to get applications from anywhere - or to get them from a central source that is somewhat vetted, and furthermore ends the hodge-podge of software update mechanisms to one where you get updates when they arrive without fuss. That's a huge boon to most people.
Okay but this isn't the cloud, this is just a really streamlined distribution service. Am I the only person that wants to have two columns for the Pros and Cons of using a cloud based service as the basis of your home operating system!?
My work here is dung.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Hasn't everyone been trying to guess what the big data center they are building is for? Well, this could be the answer you're looking for... TFTP booting has been around since the days of Xterms, maybe even before then.
It makes perfect sense for user-recovery as well. Imagine this: You've dropped your macbook, and now it won't boot from the HD, but can automatically default to net-booting into a utility that will attempt to repair the HD. It will also allow you to boot into a stripped down OS that allows you to copy all your important files to a USB stick or maybe to a ".mac" cloud destination.
The current Macbook Air doesn't eve have a HD -- it uses flash. Just imagine how much thinner they'll be able to make that computer if all it is, is a screen, keyboard and some wireless networking. Then it really will be a Macbook "Air" -- the whole machine becomes a true "netbook" in that it boots and runs from the internet.
Just wait until Apple figures out how to power it from the network as well. No batteries needed.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I'm starting to see a few user advantages to this approach- more or less. Theoretically, everything would be on-demand. So, every application would be instantly updatable, and trying new apps could be simpler, too. But it comes attached to a devil's bargain.
On the positive side, it would give developers a much better way to control their content and derive revenue from it. On the negative side, however, it would give developers a much better way to control their content and derive revenue from it. Since most of us are both, we probably experience some degree of ambivalence here.
iChromeOS
*laugh* Why, yes. Now someone will likely point out that back in the 60s they had this as well.
That, or that they didn't have terminals in the 60s, and they had to toggle in the boot sequence on the front of the machine before they could even begin to start feeding the punch cards. Up hill, both ways. In the dark. And they had to get their own firewood to fire up the tape drives. ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Nah, dumb clients won't come back soon. What I can imagine, though, is an OS where your disk image resides on a server somewhere, at your local client just caches it. You could argue that's not much different than, say, linux today, since almost all software originates from the network anyways. But using a caching infrastructure would create a presumption that the device software is updated every time at boot.
given that amazon recently yanked the services from wikileaks and apple has yanked the wikileaks app, why would anyone trust apple with their cloud? i'm an apple fan from way back, but with all the recent censoring by apple, i've had enough. i'm not buying, nor suggesting, to friends and family to buy a mac.
I, for one, do NOT welcome our cloud-based overlords.
if ($question !~ m/bb|[^b]{2}/i) { die(); }
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FepgxmNDuZ4
Mac Cloud. It don't take no guff.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
The same story was posted last night @ 8:20 PM EST- http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/01/05/0035206/Apple-Patent-Hints-at-Net-Booting-Cloud-Strategy
You can netboot macs right now in a corporate or educational environment with the right server setup.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
This looks like it could be a move to allow people to purchase an appliance that would connect to an Virtual Desktop environment. Similar to what we're seeing in the enterprise space with Wyse, Citrix, VmWare etc... whereby the user has a 'dumb terminal' at their desk and their OS is actually running on a VM in the datacenter. This significantly cuts down the costs especially with those that don't need the mobility of a laptop or specialized hardware at the desktop (graphics designers come to mind). But if you're doing Outlook/IE/Office or even if you're a programmer (VI/EMACS etc...) there's no reason your entire environment couldn't be hosted in the datacenter.
Apple: Charging even more, for even less, since 1984.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Maybe they can call the cloud piece OS CCCLXX.
iChrome-ba
Would 2013 finally be the Year of the Linux Desktop if that's the only version that doesn't go Subscription?
I think we'd be due also for an XP-User zombie rebellion if Windows 9 tried to go Cloud/Azure only.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Who in their right mind would want to net-boot even a portion of the OS now that solid state drives are affordable?
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
But they already have a Dropbox-like service - iDisk. It's not as good as Dropbox, but it's pretty Dropbox-like.
I'm not sure how much more integrated it could get. iDisks mount up just like local disks. MobileMe mail is integrated w/ Mail.app. Galleries goes hand-in-hand w/ iPhoto. Etc.
I'm with you on this one. I'm on a FiOS connection, and I still wouldn't want to have to pull major parts of my OS and/or applications over the "wire" every time I booted up. That's nuts.
It'll be one data store with your info, email, apps, documents, etc. The iPad will present one interface, the iPhone another, the laptop yet another. All the same "computer" data and settings.
Y'all are missin' how Apple's broken the cell phone sales model (at least in the US) and how they're now positioned to leverage into another market where the provider's previous dominance has limited consumer choice of devices. They're gonna put forth an AppleTV type system that netboots from the cableco's network (thereby ensuring the integrity of the system, at least to the cableco's requirements) but allows end users to install their own apps. And Apple's perfectly positioned to do this; moreover they must use the cable-compatible ATV akin to the iPhone if they don't want to be run out of the market completely by the likes of Comcast. So this is their trojan horse; and hopefully it will have the same effects on the cable set top box market that the iPhone had on smartphones - to raise the bar for consumer choice.
g=
See http://xkcd.com/743/ ...
People want the safety and security that comes from having a trusted party manage their computers for them... Most normal people just see it as a tool, and if someone else will change the oil and the spark plugs for them, then that's even better.
A car *is* just a tool that provides mobility. If your car breaks, you fix it or get another and you're right back to driving around. Your car is under your control, the roads are a common asset, and as long as you follow driving laws and have the economic ability to purchase one, you can do what you like with it. This is the ideal situation.
If your car chose to cease functioning because you fingered the manufacturer's CEO in traffic (thus breaking the no-obscenity clause in the car's TOS) would you be OK with that? Should that TOS even be allowed?
If cloud infrastructure becomes the norm, and local storage becomes somehow 'second tier' or 'for the poor', the commons of the network will cease to matter, and the very existence of a server on the internet will be subject to, say Amazon's Terms Of Service. See Wikileaks for an example of what to expect.
It's not hard to foresee a day when ISPs start shutting down access to sites not hosted on approved, "secure" clouds, at least for their basic service tiers. You'll pay extra for the 'full' internet. Most people won't bother because "everything they need is in the cloud", and they'll be happy with the lack of viruses and spam in the walled garden. The lack of IPV4 addresses might be used to drive this. Amazon might give away 'private' Elastic IP addresses to AWS customers, ISPs might pay to route customers to the AWS namespace. Suddenly Average Joe will be demanding lock-in as a feature.
The proliferation of tablets and dumbed-down, specialized devices with limited or no local storage will only encourage this evolution.
And it's the same way here, except to a few ultra-paranoids who think that everything is all about "the man controlling our data". Sorry, it just isn't. Apple doesn't give a crap about your data. They're just providing a service that the average guy who isn't a technophile *wants*. And that's why Cloud computing will take off. Technophiles have a 100% track record of being wrong about these things, because they don't understand that almost nobody else values what they value.
You really are mixing up your arguments, and your smugness is misplaced. This isn't about technophiles versus "normal people", or "ultra-paranoids" versus "average guys". Cloud computing has *already* taken off. We certainly understand that consumers don't value anything but cheapness and convenience. We're Technophiles, not Morons.
We're waving our hands because we understand the technical and social tradeoffs that are about to be made by our non-technical fellows. We are concerned for society and for everyone's abillity to build and use technology freely.
Technophiles built the digital ground you stand on. Cloud vendors will probably succeed in baiting Joe User back into an AOL-style walled garden, and you're free to go with him.
Enjoy your happy slavery while our tiny minority tries to figure out how to protect you from yourself. Or do some thinking, forgo some convenience, and help us help you: don't buy into the cloud if you can help it, even if Jobs makes it shiny.
I could see this being a very useful evolution of either the mac or windows operating systems if it gave us users the ability to instantly and economically access cloud computing power for some of the really computation intensive tasks like Video editing. I would actually prefer it if it were Microsoft because they seem now less intrusive than the new Apple. I am not willing to have anyone control my user experience to the extent that they do.
we all use and depend on the modern desktop computer, and the OS is a pretty basic element of that. At this stage in mankinds' development they qualify as essential infrastructure. Let the gov't (in the form of grants to GNU/OSS developers) drive OS development. Just like they do the roads.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I've been talking about this for around a week now, without reading any of the other online speculation beyond the pieces that seem to fit together nicely. The way Apple seems to be migrating themselves as a company, they're slowly edging into network appliance territory and away from general purpose computing. That isn't to say they're going to drop general purpose systems like the current Mac line altogether, but I suspect they're on target to go ahead and reintroduce a whole new category that those of us who have been around for a long time have seen before as Information or Network Appliances.
Only this time, they'll have the proper groundwork laid for it to succeed.
My personal suspicion is that they'll introduce a new Mobile Me experience (Me.com, is it?) and tie that together with a fourth pillar of the company's product lineup, likely something to replace the Mac Mini but limited to App Store software. Of course, the limitation will mean they can make this new product with cheaper parts and at a typically-Apple high margin. Storage will be cloud based as everyone pretty much expects, and it'll share out to iOS devices and full-tilt computers. Though, the latter category might be a while in arriving on the desktop.
Of all the companies that have tried, or could try, to run a cloud based system introduction, nobody's ever been better positioned than Apple is right now. They've got the hardware, the experience to make the software, and most importantly the mindshare to achieve the kind of critical mass necessary for cloud based systems to be economically viable along with the cash to start it up.
Privacy and security implications are of course a big question, but the inevitability of this kind of product has been building for a long while.
I wish I'd had some money for stock. :P
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
and I see all sorts of people saying "This is a lousy idea! Anyone who uses it is a fool!"
I swear half the time what they mean is "This is a great idea! I just wish I had the knowledge to be able to implement it myself!". That or "I don't like the idea of Apple enjoying success!"
Apple has already solved that with Time Machine, in that you can just roll back the system a day or so pretty easily.
Perhaps this cloud thing is just moving Time Machine out into the cloud so you don't even need a HD - other companies are doing large scale backup already, why not Apple to?
In fact this would be a real boon because even as simple as TM is, people do not check to see if the TM disks are still operational...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Clearly, GP is not familiar with the Mother of All Demos. The main computer was on the other end of a 1968 modem.
How do you run their CloudOS while on an airplane? In a train tunnel? While disconnected from the Internet itself?
There's a growing, ignorant view that everyone has access to Internet all the time, and that's simply not true, and in fact, is growing in the opposite direction. Many people are taking their devices with them more and more, and finding that they have less connectivity than they thought they did.
Home? Yes. Work? Yes. Friend's house? Yes. But all the touch points in-between? No, not likely... so what then?
He is... Steven MacCloud of the Clan McCloud. He cannot die, unless you take his head, and with it, his iPower.
NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!
This would be a monumentally stupid move. Far too many people use their computers where there is no Internet access let alone one with enough bandwidth to do something like this.
Furthermore, this will only lead to renting software every effing month.