Apple @ Work

If you have become an Apple fan in the past decade or so, you are used to yearly operating system updates for free. If you have been a Mac user longer than that, you remember actually paying for OS updates every 18 months or so. I know Halloween is coming up, so I’ll inform you of something even scarier: we had to wait in a line to buy a new version of OS X on a CD. While we’ve gotten used to free OS updates as consumers, it has been a big help to Apple in the enterprise. This week, I want to explain why frequent and free OS updates are a big help for Apple’s growth in the enterprise.
Expand
Expanding
Close

If you look at Apple’s device lineup over the past few years, the vast majority of them do not have ethernet ports. Wi-Fi has grown across retail centers, sports stadium, universities, K–12 schools, and business centers. One of the major drivers behind the growth of Wi-Fi is Apple’s products.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple @ Work is brought to you by Spike, the world’s first conversational email app that helps professionals and teams spend less time on email, and more on getting things done.

I started working in a corporate environment in 2004. Since then, I’ve watched enterprise communications dramatically change. Back then, we relied on Outlook, desk phones, and the occasional cell phone call. Today, the landscape looks completely different. We still have e-mail, but we’ve also added tools like iMessage, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and more. What’s ironic is that I feel overwhelmed at times. I joked with my wife that working in 2019 sometimes feels like keeping inboxes empty. Let’s take a look at the current state of enterprise communication tools.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple @ Work is brought to you by Spike, the world’s first conversational email app that helps professionals and teams spend less time on email, and more on getting things done.

In the enterprise IT market, eliminating variables is an essential part of the job when it comes to troubleshooting. The more variables you have, the more opportunities you have for things to go wrong. By eliminating variables on your network and with your end-user devices, you make it easier to troubleshoot when issues arise. Variables especially cause issues when it comes to major OS upgrades as you have more testing to do. The longer I’ve been in enterprise IT, the more I’ve realized that Apple’s tightly controlled system of hardware and software integration is exactly what IT departments crave. Apple controls every bit of driver updates as part of their OS upgrades, and that helps IT departments be more efficient. While IT departments used to be all in on Windows, we are starting to see that tide shift. Thanks to upgrades in the ability to manage Apple products in mass, and the simplicity of the Apple hardware and software configuration, IT departments are now seeing the value of Apple in the enterprise. Instead of banning Apple devices, IT departments are now recommending them.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple @ Work is brought to you by Spike, the world’s first conversational email app that helps professionals and teams spend less time on email, and more on getting things done.

One of the common things I hear about Mobile Device Management solutions from my technology-focused friends is they hate when their company IT departments “suck” their devices into the management system the organization chooses. For those that love to tinker, set up, and manage their own devices, having them “managed” may seem like big brother is watching. Thankfully, Apple has clear APIs for how their devices interact with MDMs, so end users can rest assured their IT department doesn’t have access to everything on their devices. If you’re wondering if your IT department can read your iMessages, you’ve come to the right place.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple @ Work is brought to you by Spike, the world’s first conversational email app that helps professionals and teams spend less time on email, and more on getting things done.

I still remember when iMessage first launched with iOS 5 in 2011 and OS X Mountain Lion in 2012. In my office, we had (and still have) terrible cell service. Since iMessage worked on Wi-Fi, I could finally send and receive “text messages” with ease. I don’t think we’ve given Apple enough credit for creating such a popular service across their ecosystem. By 2016, Apple announced that 200,000 messages were being sent every second. iMessage, despite its faults, is an excellent service. It provides fast communication to other iOS users and syncs across all of your devices. Over time, I’ve ended up in more group texts than I would have ever imagined. These aren’t just friends who are sending GIFs back and forth. These group messages are various subgroups at my office, where people are communicating about work. The problem with this situation is that iMessage was not built for internal business communications, but Apple could evolve its features to help with this use case in the future. 
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple products used to be something IT departments hated to deploy, but that mindset has certainly shifted in recent years. A lot has changed to get us to this point, but one thing was the key enabler to Apple’s growth in the enterprise: web applications. Now, you are probably thinking, why have web apps led to Apple’s growth in the enterprise? Your natural thought process would be that if an organization runs a lot of web applications, they’d want to deploy the cheapest hardware possible. They’d likely be looking at Chromebooks or inexpensive PC laptops. On the other hand, as technology has become more personal, employees have started to demand the tools they feel comfortable with. Thanks to Apple’s strong presence on mobile (iPad and iPhone), users want that same simplicity on their desktop workstations. So why have web applications enabled the adoption of macOS in the enterprise? Let’s look at the factors for how web apps on the Mac led to its enterprise growth.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple @ Work is brought to you by Jamf, the standard in Apple management. Learn more at Jamf.com/9to5mac.

Configuration profiles are a huge part of the mobile device management experience when working with the iPad and the Mac. They are the “building blocks” of how the iPad and Mac know what restrictions or settings to have in place. If you can get the hang of this aspect of using an MDM, you’ll become a master in no time. If you are looking for how to restore a deleted Jamf profile in order to remove it, I’ll cover that at the bottom.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple @ Work is brought to you by Jamf, the standard in Apple management. Learn more at Jamf.com/9to5mac.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been looking at various tips and tricks for mobile device management systems. If you are new to the MDM world, it’s how you manage devices in bulk. Whether you are managing a few or thousands of devices, an MDM solution can be helpful. It allows you to push out deploying devices without even touching them, install configuration policies, and install and manage applications remotely.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple @ Work is brought to you by Jamf, the standard for Apple management.

iPad and Mac deployments come in all shapes and sizes. Apple has built up its deployment tools to help small deployments be able to use management tools without breaking the bank, but also to where they scale up to tens of thousands of devices and IT managers don’t lose control. In this article, I want to discuss smart groups.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Apple @ Work is brought to you by Jamf, the standard in Apple management. Learn more at Jamf.com/9to5mac.

Many of you know me from my writing here at 9to5Mac. I post a few articles each week that are mainly opinion, but in my day job, I run IT for a school in Chattanooga, TN. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be working through a few tips, tricks, and workflows for best practices with device management for the Apple-focused organization.

Today, I’m happy to say that we’re kicking it off with a brand new webinar on the top mistakes that Apple IT managers make. In this video (below), I work through each mistake and explain why it’s a problem.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Since March of 2018, I’ve written a weekly column called Making the Grade covering Apple in K-12 education. A lot of the content I’ve wanted to cover has leaned a little into the enterprise (corporate world), so I’ve created a new column called Apple @ Work where I will talk about more enterprise content with how it relates to Apple. I will be moving Making the Grade to every other Saturday, with Apple @ Work publishing on the other Saturday.

In the first installment, I cover the Top 3 mistakes Apple IT managers make including a 25-minute webinar video available now (below).

Expand
Expanding
Close

A common discussion this summer in the email lists and LinkedIn groups I am in is about the iOS and macOS betas. People who manage iOS and macOS devices have to be aware of what’s happening with beta developments during the summer as we prepare to verify compatibility with printers, external devices, and applications (local and cloud). While I don’t start with this process with beta 1, I will usually begin my “official” testing around the time of the public betas. I’ve been managing macOS and iOS for almost a decade, so I’ve learned a little bit about the process along the way. When you are deploying macOS and iOS on an enterprise level, here are my tips on when to deploy macOS Catalina and iOS 13 (including iPadOS 13).
Expand
Expanding
Close

If you work in the enterprise IT market, there is a word you are hearing all of the time. It’s IoT or Internet of Things. It’s an all-encompassing term to describe devices that are connected to the network that are not end-user devices. IoT devices in the enterprise could be commercial HVAC controllers (think Ecobee, but for commercial heating and air), commercial camera and DVR systems (an enterprise-grade version of something like Arlo), water fountain filter sensors, or connected paper towel dispensers that alert someone when they are close to being empty. All of these products look great on paper, but I am concerned about the security of the devices, their ability to be managed, and their ability to be upgraded.

Expand
Expanding
Close