Bradley has worked at K-12 independent schools for much of the last 20 years, serving as the head of the information technology department and leading classroom technology integration. He’s well-versed in enterprise Wi-Fi, macOS and iOS system management, school technology, and SaaS tools.
Apple @ Work Podcast is brought to you by Jamf, the standard for Apple in the enterprise. Learn more at Jamf.com/9to5mac.
In this episode of the Apple @ Work podcast, Bradley is joined by Anna Myroshnychenko from Kitcast to talk about using the Apple TV for digital signage in schools, restaurants, office buildings, etc. We’re adding some additional audio equipment in future episodes to improve sound quality, so thanks for your patience!
Due to the worldwide pandemic, we are currently facing a lot of businesses and almost all schools being forced to move to a distance learning and remote work model without much notice. I’ve gotten a number of questions about how to enable remote work and set up distance learning tools. I thought it would be great for us to have a live webinar with our Apple @ Work community to discuss best practices and answer questions.
The Apple Watch has, rightfully so, has been at the center of Apple’s health story. We’ve seen countless stories of people getting healthy or being notified of health conditions thanks to the product. One company is taking an innovative approach to wellness thanks to a product most people haven’t considered: iPad. Echelon, located in my hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, is offering a similar product to Peloton, but at a much lower entry price with its Echelon Connect Bikes. One of the ways they are doing that is by letting users leverage an iPad for the display instead of requiring them to use one built into the bike. In learning more about the product, I took a class on location at their studio using the EX3 bike.
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We’re debuting a new series here on 9to5Mac that we’re calling Podcast of the Week. I listen to more podcasts than I care to admit, and I am always looking for new shows to help me make sense of the crazy world we live in, learn about new trends in technology, or just get a good laugh. These articles will be short and to the point. I’ll share a brief description of the show, tell you why I like it, and give you subscribe links for a range of podcast apps. This week, my favorite new podcast is Byers Market with Dylan Byers.
Apple @ Work is brought to you by Jamf, the standard for Apple in the enterprise. Learn more at Jamf.com/9to5mac.
Over the past few weeks, I have been looking at how forward-thinking Apple-focused organizations should be moving their overall operations to “the cloud” or software-as-a-service solutions. In previous weeks, we looked at email, web hosting, network security, and more. This week, I am going to look at how cloud networking has revolutionized how IT departments should be managing their core infrastructure. I will also discuss cloud networking, device management, and endpoint security.
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Water leaks are undoubtedly something that can really damage a home. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we had a water leak in our kitchen that caused our hardwood floors to warp a tad. Particularly with hardwood floors, a water leak can be disastrous. HomeKit enabled water leak detectors are the perfect way to be notified immediately in the event of a water leak. This week, I am going to review the Eve Water Guard to see where it fits within a HomeKit home.
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It seems like the Coronavirus is dominating the news as of late. Along with major conferences being canceled, there is news about companies asking workers to go remote to prevent the virus from spreading. For large companies like Apple and Google, they likely have a lot of the tools in place for their employees to go remote since they have offices around the world.
For smaller organizations, employees may lack the expertise to know which tools will help their employees stay productive and stay in communication with each other. I’ve been doing some research around these tools over the past few weeks as a safety measure, so here are some apps for remote working.
Apple @ Work is brought to you by Jamf, the standard for Apple in the enterprise. Learn more at Jamf.com/9to5mac.
As we continue our cloud-first series for Apple-focused organizations, I’m going to look at four key areas that should be in the cloud going forward. The topics this week are web hosting, email, web filtering, and cameras. While a few of these are pretty forward-thinking (web filtering and enterprise cloud-based cameras), as your organization grows, you’ll appreciate the scalability this choice brings.
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In my quest to get everything in my home working with HomeKit, I thought it would be time to replace our carbon monoxide detector with a HomeKit compatible one. After doing a bit of research, I settled on the First Alert GLOCO–500 WiFi Environment Monitor with Battery Backup. For a HomeKit carbon monoxide detector, it is exactly what I wanted.
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Apple @ Work Podcast is brought to you by Jamf, the standard for Apple in the enterprise. Learn more at Jamf.com/9to5mac.
In the first episode of the Apple @ Work podcast, Bradley talks with Gregory Keller, Chief Strategy Officer at JumpCloud. They look at the history of how enterprise IT departments have managed identity through the various eras of enterprise IT, why BYOD was a bad idea, and what the future holds for identity management in a world where employees might bring in four devices each day.
While Nest products are quite popular, they do lack native HomeKit support. I reviewed the Starling Home Hub a few weeks back, and I’ve found it to be a very reliable way to add HomeKit support to all of Nest’s product lineup.
From the dawn of the smartphone to now, we’ve seen a transformation from mobile communication to truly a pocket computer. As apps became more sophisticated, we had something that allowed us to be notified of almost anything at any time. This obviously led to a problem where we couldn’t distinguish from a text message from our spouse or a breaking news alert from Yahoo Sports. As Apple continued to develop the iPhone, we got features like Do Not Disturb and Do Not Disturb While Driving. As we look ahead to iOS 14, Apple needs a serious expansion of the iPhone Do Not Disturb functionality.
Apple @ Work is brought to you by Jamf, the standard for Apple in the enterprise. Learn more at Jamf.com/9to5mac.
Cloud computing is a term thrown around by everyone in today’s enterprise IT environment. For the next few weeks, I want to discuss what cloud computing is, why it’s beneficial for organizations of all sizes, how to build an Apple-focused organization around the cloud, and my experiences.
9to5Mac is launching a brand new podcast in March called Apple @ Work. On this podcast, we will look at how businesses and schools use Apple products and related technologies and services to get their work done.
2020 is the tenth anniversary of the iPad, so there has been a lot of discussion around the best app along with ways to get the most out of the platform and be more productive. However, the Mac is still a great place to work, play, and learn. If you are picking up your first Mac, upgrading from an old one, or just looking to become more efficient, I want to run through some of my essential Mac apps that I am using this year.
In the past month, I upgraded my Plex server from the 2017 version of the Nvidia Shield to an 8th generation Intel NUC, and I couldn’t be happier. As I was setting it up, I couldn’t help but wonder: why hasn’t Apple made a product like this? Would it be useful in the enterprise? Could it be called the Mac Mini Air?
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I’ve been using HomeKit for many years, and one of the things I can’t stop buying is outlet switches. In my house, we tend to use lamps a lot more than overhead lights, so when paired with LED bulbs, they make for an energy-efficient way to shine light in hour home. Over the years, I’ve tried multiple HomeKit compatible outlets, and I’ve finally found one that feels like it was made for HomeKit, and it’s thankfully, the least expensive one I’ve tried. Are you looking for the best HomeKit outlet? Read on to find out more.
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Video in the HomeKit ecosystem has come a long way in recent years. As we finished up 2019, we started seeing a rollout of HomeKit Secure Video. As we head into 2020, we’re waiting on a new Doorbell from abode and a new HomeKit Secure Video only option from Eve. As someone who has a lot of devices in the Home app, video cameras can easily get buried. If you have a number of HomeKit cameras, you’ll want to check out HomeCam.
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Over the years, I’ve dabbled with using Spotify instead of Apple Music. Both platforms offer users access to millions of songs and offer a wealth of personalization options. The one thing that has always kept me coming back and sticking with Apple Music is iCloud Music Library. iCloud Music Library is a feature that allows you to upload your own music and have it live right alongside your Apple Music content. It’s a feature that I use frequently, and it’s something Spotify can’t match
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As someone who’s been managing iPads and Macs for a long time, I know there are a lot of “nooks” where settings are in various mobile device management systems. I’ve learned a lot of things through trial and error as the platforms have evolved, but that isn’t useful for new technicians. A new book was recently published that I feel is essential for anyone who works with Apple products in the enterprise. I just finished reading Apple Device Management: A Unified Theory of Managing Macs, iPads, iPhones, and AppleTVs, and I think it’s going to become the handbook for Apple device management.
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One of the common questions I get is people asking about HomeKit vs. Amazon Alexa. All of these people have iPhones, but they are starting to dabble in the smart home market, so it can be confusing to see the Home app, but then see “works with Alexa” when browsing on Amazon.com. Once you get invested in a platform, it can be difficult and costly to change. So what’s the best smart home platform to get started with in 2020?
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Growing up, I was a video game junkie. I played games in all my free time. My first game system was the NES, and the final one I personally owned was the PS2 and original Xbox. I even worked at EBGames (I still don’t accept the EBGames/GameStop merger). I have fond memories of playing Halo at LAN parties, the first time I played Madden online, and being scared to death of Resident Evil 1 when I was in the 6th grade. Once I got married and had kids, I just didn’t have the free time that I had before. Now that my kids are old enough to play games, I’ve been following the industry a bit more, and I just spent a few hours with the Microsoft Project xCloud for iOS preview that we wrote about yesterday.
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Spike Email is a popular email app for iOS, macOS, and the web. Spike Email looks similar to an app like iMessage or Facebook Messenger. So many of my emails are short messages (almost like text messages), and Spike builds a design that helps make you more efficient. It strips away like headers, signatures, etc. and helps you focus on just the content. If you are using Spike Email for Mac, read on to learn about a new feature.
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I am in the midst of my third year of teaching coding at my school to nine and ten years old students, and I made a significant change this year after reflecting over the last two cycles. As I began lesson planning over Christmas break, I made a list of what I liked about Swift Playgrounds and what I didn’t like. As I began to think through it, I realized that what I didn’t like about Learn to Code 1 in Swift Playgrounds was how quickly the difficulty went up. By class five, students who didn’t naturally “get” the concepts of coding began to become frustrated. As I went to search for some different curriculum, I ended up on Code.org for coding curriculum due to its ability to create classes and monitor progress through our Clever portal integration.