Amazon's EC2 Service to Offer M1 Mac Mini Instances for Faster Build Times
Amazon today announced that its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service is now offering a "preview" of M1 Mac mini instances in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) regions of U.S. East and U.S. West, with other regions to be available when the instances are fully released.

An "instance" is a virtual server available for rent through Amazon's EC2 service for running apps on AWS infrastructure. Intel-based Mac mini instances were already available since last year, but M1 models will provide improved performance, allowing developers building apps for the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV to benefit from faster builds.
From the announcement:
If you are a Mac developer and re-architecting your apps to natively support Macs with Apple silicon, you may now build and test your apps and take advantage of all the benefits of AWS. Developers building for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple TV will also benefit from faster builds. EC2 M1 Mac instances deliver up to 60% better price performance over the x86-based EC2 Mac instances for iPhone and Mac app build workloads.
More details are available on the Amazon Web Services website and there is also a sign-up form for the M1 Mac mini instances preview.
Related Stories
Prior to yesterday's spring event, rumors suggested that Apple might unveil a new Mac mini, but instead we got the all-new Mac Studio, which is something of a mix between a Mac mini and a Mac Pro. Apple isn't phasing out the Mac mini with the debut of the Mac Studio, and a new version is still in the works.
The Mac Studio uses the M1 Max and new M1 Ultra chips, but for the next Mac mini, 9to5...
A record low discount has returned to Apple's 512GB M1 Mac mini today on Amazon. You can get this model for $799.00, down from its original price of $899.00.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
This sale matches the previous all-time low price on the 512GB M1 Mac ...
Refurbished M1 Mac mini models with a 10Gb ethernet port are now available from the Apple Store, following the launch of the $100 build-to-order option in April.
The refurbished units were first spotted by Paul Haddad on Twitter. There are currently a range of refurbished M1 Mac mini configurations with 10Gb ethernet available with different amounts of storage, although stock appears to be...
The Mac mini is set to get a significant overhaul, introducing the first major redesign to the popular desktop computer in almost 12 years. To form the new design, Apple appears to be looking to the first-generation Apple TV and the 24-inch iMac.
Apple has been believed to be working on a new Mac mini for some time. Apple updated the entry-level Mac mini with the M1 chip in November 2020,...
Today we're tracking a pair of deals on two Apple products: the Apple Pencil 2 and M1 Mac mini from 2020. For the latter product, Amazon is offering a return of all-time low prices for both the 256GB and 512GB storage options.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the...
Apple plans to launch a series of Macs with M2 chips based on TSMC's 4nm process later this year, according to Taiwanese publication DigiTimes. This advancement should allow for continued performance and power efficiency improvements.
"TSMC's 4nm process will also build Apple's M2 chip that will power the new Mac series slated for launch in the second half of this year," the report claims. ...
A YouTuber has successfully made the M1 Mac mini 78% smaller and added MagSafe in a unique DIY project, highlighting Apple's iterative approach to the current entry-level Mac mini ahead of the expected launch of a redesigned high-end model.
When Apple introduced the M1 Mac mini in November 2020, it retained the exact same unibody design that the company has used since 2010. Subsequent teardow...
Apple is widely expected to unveil a new Mac next month, but with the high-end Mac mini, the 27-inch iMac, and the Mac Pro all still featuring Intel chips and Apple's M1 machines from 2020 now reaching almost 15 months in age, it is not immediately clear which new model the company is planning to announce next.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who often reveals accurate insights into Apple's plans, r...
Popular Stories
While the summer months following WWDC are often a relatively quiet time of the year for Apple, there are still some notable items on the agenda through July. Below, we've rounded up six things to expect from Apple over the next six weeks or so.
Public Betas of iOS 16 and More
As part of WWDC 2022, Apple announced that public betas of iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS Ventura, watchOS 9, tvOS 16,...
Since the release of iOS 14.2 in 2020, the iPhone has included a built-in Music Recognition feature in Control Center powered by Shazam. And with iOS 16, and also the iOS 15.6 beta, the feature has received a small but useful upgrade.
As noted by Twitter user @someone_andrew, songs identified with Music Recognition in Control Center finally sync with the Shazam app.
It also remains...
The iPad will no longer be able to be used as a home hub following the launch of iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS Ventura, and the HomePod 16 software this fall, Apple confirmed today.
As discovered in iOS 16 code by MacRumors contributor Steve Moser, Apple says that the iPad will no longer be supported as a home hub. This information will be displayed in the Home app after updating to iOS 16.A home ...
Apple today seeded the second betas of iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 to developers for testing purposes, and the new betas introduce new features and refine some of the changes that Apple made with the first iOS 16 release.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Lock Screen Photo Wallpaper Customization
When customizing a photo on the Lock Screen, there are two new DuoTone and...
CEO Tim Cook this week did an interview with China Daily, where he once again commented on on the future of augmented reality and hinted at Apple's work on an AR/VR headset. Render via designer Ian Zelbo Cook said that Apple is excited about the opportunities available with augmented reality, which is not too far off from prior comments that he's made, but he went on to say that people should ...
Apple today seeded the second betas of upcoming iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the updates coming two weeks after Apple unveiled the new software at WWDC and released the initial betas.
Registered developers can download the iOS and iPadOS 16 profiles from the Apple Developer Center, and once installed, the betas will be available over the air. Given...
Apple plans to launch its annual Back to School promotion in the United States on Friday, coinciding with the launch of the new 13-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. In a tweet, Gurman said Apple may offer a gift card with the purchase of an eligible Mac or iPad, rather than free AirPods like last year.
UPDATE: Apple has launched its 2022 Back to School...
Twelve South today announced the "HiRise 3" stand charger for iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods, priced at $99.99. The stand supports MagSafe-compatible charging and holds an iPhone 12 or later vertically, and also includes a charging puck for Apple Watch and a Qi charging mat on the base that supports AirPods or any Qi-compatible smartphone.
The HiRise 3 is available in black and white color ...
Top Rated Comments
If you use one of their longer term savings plans, you'd be able to cut that rate by 25%-75%.
Joke: fan is not used much with ARM so is always happy :)
"
[HEADING=2]Sorry![/HEADING]
The link you followed leads to a url with an unsupported hostname.
[HEADING=2]Are you the publisher?[/HEADING]
If you would like to utilize a custom domain while sending traffic into your Geniuslink account, please contact us.
"
What Amazon is offering here is a niche service; not a bulk service. Most likely folks who might need 2-3 Minis who are already also using much larger number of Linux serves will just fire up a few add-ons in their space. It is incrementally more money for Amazon / Microsoft /etc. It is not their baseline.
So far Apple has provided no hardware to support the primary DPU/IPU/SmartNIC cards that are the core of the primary virtualiaation offerings these days for modern large scale shop. ( DPU -- data processing units (Mellanox/Nvidia and some others use the term) . iPU -- infrastructure processing units ( Intel term mainly so far) , SmartNIC -- most of the rest of the very high end data center NIC providers. ). If most of the data is stored on a virtualized network it pays to offload all of that into a separate system (usually on a card) to free up resources from the CPU. Similar with serveral other virtualization tasks ( virtual NVMe storage access, virtual network switch , etc. )
There is a ton of hand waving being done about how Apple has some cloud solution in the M-series SoC offerings. In general, they do not. The narrow corner case where they do is with macOS licensing for virtual hosting. For most part , Apple has geared the licensing so that it is general, "off the shelf" Macs that get rented out. ( not super custom , open compute style hardware ).
Eventually Apple's XCode Cloud will compete with what Amazon is doing here on the narrow macOS tasks (run macOS software ). But likely will be a more even playing field when all of the cloud services vendors are just offering Minis and "Mac Pro" racked up and rented per day.