AWS upgrades its Apple Mac stack for extra cloud power
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announcement the general availability of its fleet of new Mac Minis, powered by the Cupertino giant’s high-performance M2 Pro chips.
With the addition of Apple’s latest models to its platform, AWS EC2 customers can now choose between Intel Core i7 x86 processors or two of Apple’s SoCs: M1 and M2 Pro.
AWS says it envisions these customers building, testing, packaging and signing applications for Apple hardware, including Macs, iPhones and iPads, and Apple Watches.
M2 Pro Macs now available through AWS EC2
AWS has ordered a fleet of M2-equipped Mac Mini models with performance in mind, each featuring a 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, 32GB of memory, and an Apple Neural Engine. 16 hearts.
They also support up to 10 Gbps of Amazon VPC network bandwidth and up to 8 Gbps of Amazon EBS storage bandwidth using high-speed Thunderbolt connections.
This setup would cost at least $1,999 for customers directly from Apple’s website, making the idea of renting a Mac particularly appealing.
It’s unclear why AWS chose to go with the M2 Pro chips rather than the cheaper M2 chips in the Mac Mini, but as far as we know only the Pro versions are available.
AWS says developers can use macOS Ventura on their rented Macs. We asked the cloud company if it would add support for macOS Sonoma when Apple drops its next operating system at the end of September, but we didn’t receive an immediate response. M1-equipped Mac Minis were previously available with beta versions of the operating system, so it’s likely that the same flexibility will carry over to the newer hardware.
M2 Pro Macs are now available to rent from AWS, but due to Apple’s licensing terms, customers will need to commit to 24-hour periods, starting at $37.44 per day (via The register). They will also only be available in the Western US (Oregon) and Eastern US (Ohio), but more locations are expected to be added soon.