Bradley C

Digital signage is everywhere now. From the low-cost pizza place to movie theatres to major sports arenas, it’s everywhere. Rarely do you see signage that has to be manually changed due to the cost of continual updates. For small businesses, digital signage has often been out of reach because of the high initial cost and complexity of deployment (server infrastructure, complicated software, expensive maintenance, etc.). Thanks to the Apple TV, its management APIs, and some cloud-based software, even the smallest retail stores can now have a digital signage solution.
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Podcasts have officially been around since 2003, but in the past few years, the medium has gone mainstream. It seems like every hit TV show has a podcast to go along with it. Topics that used to be niche can now have a global following. Regardless if a show is done by a mainstream media company or a one-person operation, anyone can have a podcast. There has been a lot of talk about Apple investing in original podcast content. Still, I think there is another way Apple could invest in the podcast industry: Building out the tools to enable business customers to use Apple Podcasts as a corporate training tool.
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Apple released Screen Time initially with iOS 12, and it has continued to refine it since. I’ve enjoyed using it as a parent with my children’s iPad as a way to automatically disable their devices after a certain amount of time. Since then, we’ve had various articles looking at how Apple could improve Screen Time. Ben Lovejoy argued that a Screen Time API would allow third-party developers to expand beyond what Apple has built. I mentioned last December that I would love to see some enhanced Safari filtering options, iMessage history, and more. After I attended JNUC 2019, I started wondering what Screen Time for the enterprise might look like if Apple released it.
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Backblaze, the popular macOS backup service, has just released a nice update to its iOS and Android apps. While the mobile apps have been great for personal users for years, business customers have been left out. With version 5.0, Backblaze B2 customers can now access your B2 buckets, browse files inside the buckets, and download them to your mobile device.

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A few weeks ago, I discussed how I wanted to see Apple build-out options to secure specific iCloud Drive folders with Face ID/PIN code unlocks for additional security. One of the folks who read the article had an excellent idea about iCloud Photos security that I wanted to expand on further.
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One of the most significant changes in enterprise IT over the last decade has been with Software as a Service (SaaS) going from the minority to the expectation. Thanks to frequent (and free) updates of macOS and iOS, developers are having to spend considerable resources on maintaining their apps on top of trying to grow their feature sets. Instead of spending $1500 every time a new version of Adobe Creative Cloud comes out, organizations can have a recurring charge for the number of seats they need and easily monitor expenses. Setapp, the popular all you can eat service for apps, has recently released an enterprise version for businesses that is called Setapp for Teams.
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Apple has been playing the slow game with HomeKit compared to Amazon’s Alexa ecosystem. Where Apple is working on detailed projects like HomeKit Secure Video, Amazon and Google are being bundled into nearly every device that has Wi-Fi in it. I love HomeKit, and I prefer it over Alexa or Google Assistant, but as we come to the end of 2019, I have four Amazon Echo Dots in my home and no HomePods. One of the key reasons I finally succumbed and bought a few Echo Dots was when Apple Music support launched and I found them on sale. If someone who loves Apple has started to dip his toes into the Alexa waters, what should be on Apple’s HomeKit plans for 2020?
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IT professionals are known for having all of the latest technology products, so they can be hard to buy for during the Christmas season. In my Apple @ Work post for this week, I want to run through a handful of products that would make for an excellent Christmas gift ideas for the IT professionals in your life.
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A few weeks ago, I mentioned how, between all of the excellent podcasts, music, movies, TV shows, and books that the thing most creators are fighting for more than ever before is people’s attention. No longer are we limited by the songs in our library. Apple Music or Spotify gives us access to almost every song available. 99.99% of podcasts are free, so there is always something new to binge. Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, Hulu, Apple TV+, and countless others provide us with more TV shows and movies than we could ever hope to watch. The industry, in my opinion, with the most opportunity going forward, is the digital book market.
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I’ve been interested in what Apple is doing in the health industry for a while now. I love reading stories about people using Apple Watch to get healthy, prevent accidents, and more. While I was at JNUC this past week, I got to spend some time with Lindsey Koshansky from Locus Health to hear how they are using the iPad in the healthcare field. They are heavily invested in the Apple and Jamf ecosystem, so I was eager to hear more about what they’re doing.
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I love iCloud Drive. I love how integrated it is into macOS and iOS, and I long ago moved most of my documents away from Dropbox (except for Shared Folders). I am always looking for new ways to back up my photos, though. Since I keep an active Microsoft Office subscription, I thought I would use the 1TB of storage as another place to upload my photos. When I was using the OneDrive app, I noticed it had a Personal Vault section that I thought would be a great addition to iCloud Drive for storing sensitive files. Microsoft announced it back in June, and it rolled out worldwide in October. As I started using the OneDrive iPhone app, I quickly began to wonder why Apple hasn’t created a secure iCloud Drive folder with Touch ID and Face ID support.
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I’ve heard for years that you shouldn’t use your Mac with administrator privileges. I 100% agree with that statement, and I still use my Mac with administrator privileges. But to be perfectly honest, it’s just sort of inconvenient. In the enterprise, running as an administrator can certainly be against company policy, and depending on what environment you operate in, you may be out of compliance with industry regulations or customer contracts. But thanks to an open source tool (Privileges for macOS) from SAP, Apple focused enterprises now have a great solution. 
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The iPhone 11 Pro Max battery has been fantastic since the day I purchased it. Apple touts up to 80 hours of audio playback and 20 hours of video playback. Apple’s technical specs page says that it lasts up to five hours longer than the iPhone XS Max. With this increase in battery life, is a battery case still needed? I’ve been using the Mophie juice pack access for the past few weeks (which included my trip to JNUC 2019), so I wanted to share my thoughts.
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At JNUC 2019, Jeremy Butcher from Apple Product Marketing came on stage to give the Apple community an update on the state of Apple’s enterprise focus. He highlighted that all Fortune 500 companies are using Apple products.
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Over the years, IBM has been a big believer in letting its employees have a choice when it comes to technology. If you want to talk your supervisor into letting you use a Mac at work, you’ll want to see what they announced at the Jamf Nation User Conference (JNUC) about the productivity of Mac users compared to PC users.
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Jamf is kicking off JNUC 2019 today with some exciting announcements for IT departments who manage Apple devices in the enterprise and K–12. Today, they have launched Jamf Protect, an enterprise endpoint protection solution build from the ground up for macOS.
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Out of all the electronic devices I own, the one I’d want to give up last is my Kindle Oasis. In my opinion, it brings the best of technology while ignoring the worst. I even wrote a few months back about the idea around Apple creating an e-ink reader to take on the Kindle. Despite Apple’s attempts with the Apple Books redesign, the Kindle and Audible ecosystem is still the best place to be for book fans. I was recently made aware of a feature of the Kindle that Apple hasn’t matched but should be on their radar for a future Apple Books upgrade: US public library system integration.
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A few weeks ago, I looked at the role that subscriptions are playing with the App Store economy. One of the comments that I got was about in-app purchases in Apple’s School and Business Manager programs. Despite the advancements in features of Apple’s deployment platforms, in-app purchases are not able to be deployed via Apple’s deployment programs for schools and businesses. While a lot of developers have created School Editions of their apps, many others remain unable to be deployed in mass because of this limitation. How could Apple implement in-app purchases in their deployment platforms?
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Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched two long-standing apps release new versions with business decisions that led to an outcry from many users. Pocket Casts went free but introduced Pocket Casts Pro as an optional subscription that included Desktop applications access to the web player. Customers who had previously paid $9 to unlock the web player were frustrated because they were awarded three years of Pocket Casts Pro but would need to subscribe after that to keep access to the web player. Weather Line 2 was also recently released with a new optional subscription to unlock new features. Users who choose not to subscribe will now have ads inside the app. Some customers were frustrated that an app that previously didn’t have ads now required a subscription to avoid them. Are app subscriptions fair to customers?
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I’ve been testing out the Robo Wunderkind Robotics Kit for the past couple of months from the perspective of an educator and a parent. I’ve tested out a dozen or so of these types of products (building blocks + iPad app), and they’ve all had one thing in common: they can be overwhelming for kids. Many of them include hundreds of pieces with pages full of options of things to create. After spending some time with it, I am ready to give you my Robo Wunderkind Robotics Kit review.
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