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Apple reportedly taking steps to improve its cloud services

Apple reportedly taking steps to improve its cloud services

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Sam Byford

Apple is said to be taking steps to improve its cloud services, including consolidating related teams and developing new technology that could let Apple run its own servers, according to Bloomberg.

Apple has struggled in the cloud for much of the past decade while its competitors — basically every big name: Amazon, Google, Microsoft — have managed to create successful services or hosting platforms. Apple is now hoping to pick up the pace, according to Bloomberg, in part by moving all of its cloud service teams together under one roof.

Apple has been perpetually behind Google on cloud services

That'll mean having the iCloud, Siri, Apple News, Apple Pay, and Maps teams, as well as parts of the iTunes and Apple Music teams, all at the Infinite Loop campus, rather than spread across multiple smaller sites, according to Bloomberg. One can question how much putting people in the same building can cure years of sluggish development, but Apple apparently thinks it'll speed things up and guard against buggy software.

Perhaps more consequentially, Apple is also taking steps toward taking over the hosting of its cloud services, which are currently handled in part by Amazon and Google, according to Bloomberg. It's reportedly developing software, called Pie, meant to put all of its services in a single place; it's also said to be developing a photo storage system that Apple could host on its own.

That might be a big help for Apple. Where Amazon and Google both offer limitless cloud storage options for photos, Apple charges its customers for anything beyond the bare minimum. It's led to real usability issues on both the iPhone and the Mac — we wrote yesterday about the iCloud pricing problem, and I discussed it extensively in my review of macOS Sierra, too. Apple getting it together in the cloud isn't simply a matter of bugs, it's likely also a matter of lowering costs so that it can match competitors' compelling offerings.