Amazon just announced that it has upgraded Mac minis used in Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) to macOS Big Sur, the latest version of macOS released later this year. This will allow developers around the world access from the cloud all the features offered by Big Sur on a powerful Mac mini.
This is important news for developers because Big Sur may be necessary for the development of some applications that require the latest version of Xcode. This new version includes important new features for the development of iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, tvOS 14.5, watchOS 7.4 and macOS Big Sur 11.3.
In addition, Amazon says it will update Mac mini-based servers to successive versions of macOS that Apple is launching. Although it is normal that it does so with a few months of delay, until verifying that it is a stable and error-free version.
“Starting today, customers can run macOS Big Sur (11.2.1) as Amazon Machine Images (AMI) on Mac EC2 instances. macOS Big Sur is Apple’s current major version of macOS, featuring many new features and performance improvements over previous versions of macOS. macOS Big Sur will support running Xcode on version 12.5 and later, which will include additional SDKs for iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, tvOS 14.5, watchOS 7.4, and macOS Big Sur 11.3. Customers can now also access Amazon EFS file systems from Mac EC2 instances running macOS Big Sur“.
What is Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud?
This is an Amazon Web Services service that provides the ability to access cloud computing safely. It is a platform designed for developers to access computers in the cloud to develop, build and test their applications. And since last December, have Mac mini computers with which developers can access macOS.
This means that developers and businesses now have possibility to use macOS in the cloud, wherever they are and without having to buy a Mac. Remember, iOS apps can only be developed from Mac computers.
This system can be very interesting for companies because it avoids a significant investment, allows to accommodate the service according to the needs and to pay when the project is finished. And for this, Amazon bought hundreds of Mac mini with Intel Core i7 processors and 32 GB of RAM. In the near future, Amazon says it might upgrade those computers to the new Mac mini with M1.
This update could be good for developers and Amazon. The former would benefit from Apple’s new processors and their great power in certain tasks, and the latter take advantage of the M1’s low power consumption
“Amazon EC2 Mac instances allow customers to run macOS workloads on demand in the cloud for the first time, extending the flexibility, scalability, and cost benefits of AWS to all Apple developers. With EC2 Mac instances, developers who build apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Safari can access macOS environments in minutes“.
“EC2 Mac instances are created on computers Apple Mac mini with Intel Core i7 processors and offer customers a choice of macOS Mojave (10.14), macOS Catalina (10.15) and macOS Big Sur (11.2.1)“.
Amazon’s Mac mini servers are located in different locations around the world, we have 5 centers: three in the United States, one in Europe and one in Asia.
- Eastern United States (N. Virginia)
- Eastern United States (Ohio)
- Western United States (Oregon)
- EU (Ireland)
- Asia-Pacific (Singapore)
Amazon offers a way to access a Mac from anywhere without the need for a large investment thanks to cloud computing, and now all these developers and companies can benefit from the new features of macOS Big Sur.