In the March of 2016 a report citing “people familiar with the matter” claimed that Apple was in the process of moving a significant amount of its iCloud data storage onto the Google Cloud Platform.
At the time, Apple was using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure to store user data – that was public knowledge – but the use of Google Cloud Platform was never confirmed officially by the company, until now.
Updated by Apple in January, and spotted by CNBC, the iOS Security Guide – a PDF that is updated by the company every once in a while, detailing iOS’ security measures – now states that the iCloud service stores encrypted chunks of user data “without any user-identifying information, using third-party storage services, such as S3 and Google Cloud Platform.” However, while Google’s contribution is confirmed, references to Microsoft Azure have been removed, indicating that the two might have parted ways.
Unfortunately, the document doesn’t state when Apple began using Google Cloud Platform, or when it stopped using Microsoft Azure. In contrast, AWS is still present and mentioned, meaning that Amazon continues to maintain relevance.