Apple Made A Brand-New OS For The First Time In A Decade, And It’s About To Be Released — Sort Of

Apple Intelligence and Microsoft Recall both take different approaches to security, and neither are perfect. Apple Intelligence uses cloud processing, and there is always an unknown element anytime data leaves your device. Recall isn’t much better — it’s stored on-device, but in plain text, which is why it got recalled. Amid all this, you may have missed a big WWDC announcement: Apple has a brand-new operating system designed for Private Cloud Compute that’s made to enhance privacy and security.

The odds of anyone actually being able to run this secretive operating system outside of Apple’s own data centers are slim, if not completely zero. It doesn’t even have a name, at least one that is public. However, due to the company’s commitment to make its Private Cloud Compute practices available for external review, we’ll likely see this OS “released” soon.

Private Cloud Compute runs a custom OS

It’s designed to maximize security and efficiency

Source: Apple

For those unfamiliar, Apple Intelligence is Apple’s suite of AI features coming to the best iPhones, iPads, and Macs in beta this fall. There are two main components of Apple Intelligence: on-device processing using the Neural Engine in Apple silicon chips, and Private Cloud Compute on Apple servers. Private Cloud Compute runs on Apple silicon servers, reportedly using M2 Ultra processors, using a custom operating system. While it was initially expected that Private Cloud Compute would use a derivative of macOS, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Related

How Apple’s Private Cloud Compute supports private AI processing

Apple is making some bold claims about the privacy and security of their Private Cloud Compute. But how does it actually work – and is it any good?

In a blog post on Apple’s security releases page, first spotted by TechRadar, the company sheds a bit of light on this operating system:

The root of trust for Private Cloud Compute is our compute node: custom-built server hardware that brings the power and security of Apple silicon to the data center, with the same hardware security technologies used in iPhone, including the Secure Enclave and Secure Boot. We paired this hardware with a new operating system: a hardened subset of the foundations of iOS and macOS tailored to support Large Language Model (LLM) inference workloads while presenting an extremely narrow attack surface.

Apple says that this unnamed OS is built using the foundations of iOS and macOS. This isn’t particularly surprising, because the company often uses its other operating systems to make new ones. For example, tvOS is based on iOS and visionOS is based on iPadOS. However, this new OS is designed to make Private Cloud Compute as secure as possible.

The inclusion of the Secure Enclave and Secure Boot immediately make Private Cloud Compute safer. These are the same technologies that keep biometrics safe on iOS and prevent malware from infiltrating the base-level operating system. As Apple explains, a “hardened” OS that takes notes from iOS and macOS will limit the methods through which attackers can try and breach Private Cloud Compute.

Reading between the lines, it’s clear that this operating system is designed to perform extremely specific tasks and with security first and foremost. Anything that isn’t necessary to run LLMs and AI processes simply isn’t included. Though there are clearly parts of this hardened OS that are pulled from iOS and macOS, it appears to be a unique OS that stands on its own. It’s a smart strategy — anything that is redundant on the Private Cloud Compute operating system can only have negative effects. If it’s not needed, it’ll be removed to increase security.

We’ll likely see it, but don’t get your hopes up about running it

Apple’s AI servers are expected to be powered by M2 Ultra chips.

I’m sure this is far from the first custom OS that Apple has cooked up for internal use. However, it’s a rare one that is out in plain view. To convey trust in Private Cloud Compute, Apple is making all the information surrounding it available for public review. It’s even giving cash rewards to people who catch a security vulnerability related to Apple Intelligence’s cloud computing practices. Here’s exactly what the company says:

When we launch Private Cloud Compute, we’ll take the extraordinary step of making software images of every production build of PCC publicly available for security research . This promise, too, is an enforceable guarantee: user devices will be willing to send data only to PCC nodes that can cryptographically attest to running publicly listed software. We want to ensure that security and privacy researchers can inspect Private Cloud Compute software, verify its functionality, and help identify issues — just like they can with Apple devices.

If the Private Cloud Compute servers run this hardened OS, and Apple is promising to make every production build of PCC publicly available, that means we’ll see this OS debut in some form shortly. Will you be able to run it on devices at home? Probably not. But it’s the first new operating system we’ve seen from Apple since watchOS, and it’ll be exciting to learn more about what Apple designed specifically for AI computing.

Is it time for macOS Server to return?

Now that Apple is designing new server hardware and software, it might be

Source: Wikimedia commons

Again, Apple probably won’t make this hardened OS something that can be run on the best Macs you have at home. Just because it’s going to be made available for security research and transparency purposes doesn’t mean you’ll be able to use it. But what if it did? Now that Apple is openly making custom server hardware and software, it’s got us salivating at the idea of the Xserve or macOS Server making a proper return. Until then, we’ll just have to be content with getting our eyes on this secretive new OS made for AI, which will come out soon.