Apple Now Using Google’s Cloud For iCloud

But because the vendors in question aren’t willing to comment, it’s not known whether Apple may still be using Azure for any other pieces of iCloud.

All this needs a lot of storage space that the company has to make enough room for and efficiently manage. Apple says the data held with third parties doesn’t include personally identifiable information. The update to the iOS Security Guide naming Google was published this January, the previous version was issued in March 2017. It is quite understandable that Apple chooses to work with third-party vendors instead of spinning up its servers.

Unfortunately, the document doesn’t state when Apple began using Google Cloud Platform, or when it stopped using Microsoft Azure. Apple hasn’t yet released any details about what the specific iCloud data has been included in the storage on cloud server provided by Google. Using the same technology powering popular services like Google Search and YouTube, Google Cloud Platform has become one of the leading cloud-computing services.

But in the most recent version of the PDF, the Microsoft Azure reference has disappeared and has been replaced by Google Cloud Platform. Google announced earlier this month that its cloud-based products and services contribute $1 billion in revenue per quarter. In its fiscal 2018 quarter, the company’s business cloud income gathered a total amount of .3 billion. This means that Apple will remain as Google’s client like many other big names like PayPal and Spotify until they can host their own cloud platform, which will be a feasible plan eventually. Hence, citing such data must have been really hard for Apple since it loves keeping sensitive data private.

The extent to which Apple relies on Google Cloud Platform remains unknown. Reports at the time suggested that the shift from AWS to Google would net the latter firm some $400 million to $600 million.

Apple’s service is extremely popular with Apple users as a way to store photos and videos as back up or to prevent their devices from filling up.