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I think Apple does a combination. Both (from the article) of hosting on AWS, Google, & Microsoft, but also on its own data centers.

I suppose it also depends on what is being hosted. If you look at Netflix & Dropbox, they both took control of their core piece (CDN & Storage) - not the entire end to end platform. I'd imagine Apple does something similar.

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In Netflix case, I believe owning specialized and custom built systems to handle CDN & storage are essential. I think this CDN is content/media CDN, not the web tier, which I believe is still on Amazon. But feel free to correct me.

I winder what would constitute Apple's core?

Apple's core is consumer hardware. Anything they're doing on the cloud is ancillary.

I think you could make the case that iCloud is core to Apples business.

I'd venture to guess it's about the same -- CDN (for their App Stores, OS updates, etc) and storage (iCloud backups, etc). My guess is their cloud compute needs are relatively low compared to storage and content delivery.

edit: I should note that yes, as the other poster said their core business is hardware, but their core cloud needs are what I posted.

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