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Apple Business

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Re: Apple Business

#81
post #79

This is interesting to me as the IT support for my family. I have been considering using MDM to provision Wi-Fi credentials and other device configurations. 3rd party solutions are a little bit too much for what I need. Apple Business Essentials with AppleCare+ for 3 devices and 200GB iCloud storage is $19.99 per user/mo. That's the same price as AppleCare One alone.

I wanted to use the existing ABE product for exactly that, especially as you can actually lockdown apple devices properly to stop teens from undoing VPN settings etc … however it’s explicitly against their policies to use ABE for personal devices and I’d guess the same for this new iteration of it.

Re: Apple Business

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft is a giant enterprise software company that also publishes Candy Crush and Call of Duty. Intune and Windows are 'nice to have' but are not the business-business. The business is 365 (which runs on Macs and is worlds better than Apple's office suite + Apple's hosted email is god awful) and Azure.

Apple's office suite is my favorite I've ever used, and it's not close. After that, old copies of MSOffice. Next-best would be a hodgepodge of the lighter options on Linux and such. Gnumeric, Abiword, that sort of thing. Not great, but at least they're light on resources and easy to use. Distantly after that, LibreOffice. Then, modern MSOffice in last place. The only reason I'd count any of them as "worse" than moder…

Crazy how different people experience this.

For me it’s completely inverted; Google is top place, then Libreoffice, then MSOffice, then anything by Apple last place.

Re: Apple Business

#83

Will we be able to change our company details? A couple of years ago we changed the business name, so let's change it in the account for billing and such. Not possible. Ok, let's ask support what to do: the only thing we can do is create a new account, get the approval, etc. and then ask for a migration that may or may not be approved and may or may not end succesfully. In the end we keep receiving the bills in the o…

I guess ultimately it's easier and works better than when you move country and would like to update the country for PSN (PlayStation Network). Sony's advice? Close the old account and open a new one with the correct country, then buy the same stuff again.

Haha ah of course. It’s not like you ever actually owned them in the first place.

Re: Apple Business

#84
post #56

So will Apple users be able disable these ads in maps?

I would expect, much like the App Store, they will not. Their maps will give you directions to navigate the enshittification curve.

Re: Apple Business

#85
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno if you've ever had a business relationship with Apple but they're really good on that front. Proactive and helpful, along with always trying to sell you stuff, but proactive and helpful nonetheless.

A B2C relationship and a B2B relationship are not the same thing. Apple does well with the B2C pipeline, but they will only surpass Jamf in the B2B department if they play dirty.

By business relationship I meant B2B. They're excellent.

Re: Apple Business

#86
post #77

I recently tried setting Apple Business Manager for our ≈20 people SME. The first step was "Domain Lock/Capture" which takes over all Apple accounts for a specific domain. I've never had a worse experience from Apple. The process is buggy, filled with foot-guns and dead ends. It expects huge amounts of work from users who have had their account for more than a few weeks and are expected to remove a lot of their perso…

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. (We've used SimpleMDM and love them.)

Re: Apple Business

#87

So do enterprises still need Jamf [1]? For context, Jamf is one of the most common MDM tools for organizations. [1]: https://www.jamf.com/

Yep. People who have never tried to add Mac support to an existing organization do not realize how freaking expensive it is. There are basically two cases. If you use Microsoft, you are often already paying for Entra ID and Intune, then still adding the Apple-side pieces for Mac support: Apple Business Manager and often Jamf or Kandji. If you do not use Microsoft, you are buying the full stack yourself: Okta or JumpC…

Totally agree on the hidden costs. We've seen some great value in going with Mosyle for this. Lots cheaper, and it "just works."

https://mosyle.com/

Re: Apple Business

#88
post #77

I recently tried setting Apple Business Manager for our ≈20 people SME. The first step was "Domain Lock/Capture" which takes over all Apple accounts for a specific domain. I've never had a worse experience from Apple. The process is buggy, filled with foot-guns and dead ends. It expects huge amounts of work from users who have had their account for more than a few weeks and are expected to remove a lot of their perso…

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'm currently in that hellish process too... I don't know how to get out of it. Did you know that your employees will be forbidden from downloading from the App store once you launched that migration? It's a nightmare

Re: Apple Business

#89
post #5

Apple's really late to this.

They are just combining existing services: Apple Business Essentials, Apple Business Manager, and Apple Business Connect.

It's like Microsoft now - put everything under one massive convoluted control panel.

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