> I guess maybe they have some internal M-series server product they just haven’t bothered to release to the public, and features like this are downstream of that?
Or do they have some real server-grade product coming down the line, and are releasing this ahead of it so that 3rd party software supports it on launch day?
I worked on some of the internal server hardware. Yes they do have their own boards. Apple used to be all-in on Linux, but the newer chips are far and away more power-efficient, and power is one of the (if not the) major cost of outfitting a datacenter, at least over time.
These machines are very much internal - you can cram a lot of M-series (to use the public nomenclature) chips onto a rack-sized PCB. I was never under the impression they were destined for anything other than Apple datacenters though...
As I mentioned above, it seems to me there's a couple of feature that appeared on the customer-facing designs that were inspired by what the datacenter people wanted on their own PCB boards.
Are these internal servers full of M-series chips running a server max osx build then as well?
Apple's OS builds are a lot more flexible than most people give them credit for. That's why essentially the same OS scales from a watch to a Mac Pro. You can mix and match the ingredients of the OS for a given device pretty much at will, as long as the dependencies are satisfied. And since you own the OS, dependencies are often configurable.
That they sell to the public? No way. They’ve clearly given up on server stuff and it makes sense for them.
That they use INTERNALLY for their servers? I could certainly see this being useful for that.
Mostly I think this is just to get money from the AI boom. They already had TB5, it’s not like this was costing them additional hardware. Just some time that probably paid off on their internal model training anyway.
> That they sell to the public? No way. They’ve clearly given up on server stuff and it makes sense for them.
Given up is not a given. A lot of the exec team has been changing.
Some people are still hoping they care for some of their older customers.
https://cottonbureau.com/p/4RUVDA/shirt/mac-pro-believe-dark...
And if the rumors are right -- that hardware SVP John Ternus is next in line for CEO -- I could see a world where the company doubles-down on their specialized hardware vs. services.
They’ve done a dip-in-a-toe thing many times, then gave up.
If I was in charge of a business, and I’m an Apple fan, I wouldn’t touch them. I’d have no faith they’re in it for the long term. I think that would be a common view.