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Apple Business

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Re: Apple Business

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The domain lock process was an absolute fiasco at our company. I think this could work if you did this at the time your company launched, but the moment you have employees who have Apple IDs tied to their work email that aren't from the Business Essentials system you are stuck in an impossible-to-mange place. There are several cheap MDM solutions for Apple devices that I would rather pay for than be dependent on this…

> I think this could work if you did this at the time your company launched This should not be a surprise. Greenfield services have not existed long enough to resolve edge cases that inevitably arise while integrating existing operating models already in use.

The broken part of this process (domain claim) has existed for several years as part of ABE, it isn't new.

Re: Apple Business

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why people bother with all of this to lock the environment into some kind of corporate nightmare? Why not allow some freedom for the worker. I don't see the appeal, it feels like a claustrophobic cage

There are many reasons. * Preprovisioning - devices have the right certificates and know about your corporate networks. They have the necessary apps and just work. * Tracking - if a device is lost or stolen, monitor where it is and remotely lock or wipe it * Monitoring - have a log to audit if someone does something malicious * Security - reduce the chance of your employees installing malware, spyware, etc. whether b…

Bigger one:

* Predictability - eliminating the number of unknown factors that could cause a person to have issues using their computer. Reminds me of how a secretary I serviced was somehow able to install Google Desktop back in the day, and how that caused a massive argument between my boss and theirs when their computer needed to be re-imaged. Most IT approved programs are known to store user data in known locations on a computer, which makes backups and restorations very easy. Stuff like Google Desktop did not do that, which means likely breaking someone's workflow in the re-image process.

Re: Apple Business

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, I remember looking at jamf at one point and the mandatory consulting was so annoying because we already had it dialled in on the free trial. In the end we just made do with intune. It's a lot less capable for Mac but these days you can get by with it.

hopefully there's no kill switch for macs on intune, if not, the threat of wiping machines with one click is real, just ask stryker; https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/stryker-attack-device...

Of course there is a kill switch. This is one of the key features of an MDM/endpoint manager. You won't be able to sell one without it. It's also built in to apple's management protocol (which most endpoint management systems leverage) and in activesync.

You just have to secure it properly. Have limits to how many one admin can wipe etc. But trust me every company with managed IT assets has this capability. Often even in BOYD scenarios! Stryker just failed to secure access to it properly and to set sensible limits.

However, the feature isn't very effective in the field. It's very unlikely for an attacker to be smart enough to bypass the password on a stolen Mac which is needed to connect it to WiFi, yet at the same time be dumb enough to connect it to the unfiltered internet so it can receive the wipe command. The overlap between these sets of people is almost zero. We do fire a wipe at every stolen computer but I doubt it ever actually happens. If it ever happens it'll be a total end user fail (like writing the password on a post-it with the laptop)

Either you will lose it to a common thief who won't be able to breach the login (99% of cases), or to a really targeted adversary who has cellebrite or something similar and won't connect it to the internet ever again. This is still the most risky scenario because if someone like that steals it, there's bound to be something really valuable on it.

In practice this is something more suited to mobile devices.

Re: Apple Business

#434

Strategically, Apple's not setting themselves up for success here by giving Apple Business away for free (with paid per-user storage bumps). As a lot of people on this thread have pointed out, Apple's Business Manager needs a lot of improvements. ("Bring your own device" support is terrible, for example. Changing business names requires a perilous migration step. Support reps don't have the tools to fix serious issue…

"If Apple Business were a real revenue source, if they charged luxury prices for a luxurious business support experience, they could pay for developers to fix their stuff. Instead, Apple Business is a free side hustle for Apple, a hobby."

I'm wrestling with something similar to this right now in Linux. The only real player that charges "enough" to have a "absolutely zero tolerance for base OS breakage" approach to OS development is Red Hat. Ubuntu LTS is more widespread but only really because it's $0 even for large businesses, and that's honestly reflected in it sometimes having hardware breakage during a version's initial two year mainstream support run. Having Windows's business backed level of "doesn't break" on hardware is rare on Linux.

Re: Apple Business

#435
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is “late” to everything which is why it’s the leader Being early is the same as being wrong and there’s no business value in costly exploration of new territory at least in the 21st century Name me a single company that is still in business and dominating a market based on being first to market with a new product.

Depending on how you define "new" but there are certainly examples of this, Spotify is the first to come to mind, AWS could be another.

AWS was a literal spinout that’s a different thing entirely

Re: Apple Business

#436
post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just gonna go ahead and say that I'm not sure what happened there but either you or your mom signed in with your account on the other device. I have a lot of technical understanding with how CloudKit works and there's not a pathway for what you're describing to come out of a family group.

Maybe Something to do with Family Purchase Sharing. I didn’t realize when I bought an audio book it would appear in my dad’s library. Kind of embarrassing. Apple’s help pages make it sound very opt in but I think there are bugs where libraries are merged by default. Some say on a quiet night you can still hear Bono singing “sexy boots”…

Libraries are not merged, only purchase history. It does not download to their device in any scenario automatically.

A lot of people have their iTunes accounts signed in on other devices which would do what you describe, but not family sharing.

Re: Apple Business

#437
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you're saying is that the same 8GB of RAM that MacBook Air M1 had 6 years ago is a good idea for a brand new laptop? Like I said, the MacBook Neo is squarely a low-end device. Make excuses all you want, it trades RAM, storage, keyboard backlight, and battery size for a nice chassis and portability.

Yes, it's an excellent idea. For normal people a computer is a tool to get things done, and any 8GB Apple Silicon machine will serve them very well. Think about it this way: If you loose 5 days of productivity then you have lost $500. A Windows or Linux machine is guaranteed to cause many more days than that of productivity loss per year. And with "normal people" I mean everybody who is not a developer or hacker, inc…

I don’t understand why there’s a strange assumption that Windows or Linux users are just burning productivity all the time and macOS users are the only ones where “everything just works.” Heck leave Linux out of it for all I care: Windows isn’t some kind of immature OS that that requires tons of fiddling. It’s basically the same thing as macOS when it comes down to non-technical users. They open up the windows store or Mac app Store click a button and get their apps and they’re on their way.

It’s just a biased take that is 100% subjective.

I think this narrative comes from the Windows XP user experience from 30 years ago that no longer exists.

Yeah, the RAM fucking matters because Google Chrome has 90% browser marketshare, because Spotify is the market leader, not Apple Music, because more people use Microsoft Outlook than Apple Mail, more people use Slack than…well, Apple doesn’t have a workplace chat program. These are big memory-sucking apps.

8GB of RAM is great for Apple native optimized apps but regular users run many more things than that.

Re: Apple Business

#438
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that Apple is in many ways joining Acer, not bringing their luxury product down to the masses. Yes, in many ways they’re bringing a very polished product to the space. But in many other ways, look closely and you’ll see the cut corners. Again, I’ve felt the Neo in person. The chassis feels nice, sure. It’s not built to the same level as Apple’s other products, though. The bottom plate is not CNCed, it’s a…

>Look at laptop reviews from places like Just Josh Tech on YouTube I stopped reading here.

Okay? So you don’t look at reviews or something? What’s the problem that made you stop reading?

Re: Apple Business

#439
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep shouting from the rooftops the fact that the Neo is really not that disruptive or even necessarily that good of a deal. Like, have any of you actually looked at street prices at Micro Center or Best Buy recently? In the price range of the higher model Neo you can get a Yoga 7 with an OLED convertible touch screen, 1TB storage, 16GB of RAM, along with a processor with better multicore and iGPU performance (Ryze…

And it comes with Windows. Back in the normal world people don't use Linux. If you have the funds you can get an M4 Air with 16GB for 800$. I still have a 8GB M1 air, it's fine for filling out paper work and watching YouTube, which is the extent of what most people do

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Re: Apple Business

#440
post #345
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep shouting from the rooftops the fact that the Neo is really not that disruptive or even necessarily that good of a deal. Like, have any of you actually looked at street prices at Micro Center or Best Buy recently? In the price range of the higher model Neo you can get a Yoga 7 with an OLED convertible touch screen, 1TB storage, 16GB of RAM, along with a processor with better multicore and iGPU performance (Ryze…

... the Yoga doesn't run MacOS though.

Okay? Windows and macOS are basically the same.

Only biased fanboy people say otherwise.

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