Apple Business

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 personal data before their account can be migrated (e.g. do you know how to delete all your Health data?). The process is also impossible to cancel.

Phone support was par for the course, e.g. tickets escalated to the abyss, suggestions to restore workstations to factory settings, etc.

Be warned.

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 issues.)

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. But they're proposing to control your entire domain, to Domain Lock all Apple accounts for your domain, to put your businesses's life in their hands, for "free."

Don't fall for it.

599$ serviceable MacBooks, easy to use MDM, Cloud, Email and Calendar and flat-fee AppleCare all baked in?

New businesses under 50 employees are going to eat this up like there's no tomorrow.

I'd be scared if I was certain Redmond corporation who makes their money on 365 and Intune.

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 old name, then change it manually or append a note.

Does Apple support multiple iCloud accounts on a device yet?

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/

How does this differ from the existing "Business Essentials" tool? The landing page for each looks like much the same product, at least the MDM stuff does?

> https://business.apple.com/preview

> https://www.apple.com/business/essentials/

I wonder if this was timed to lineup with the MacBook Neo launch, which makes the idea of equipping your entire company with Mac laptops a lot more compelling from a cost perspective.

It's kinda crazy it took Apple this long to make this.

I've worked with two agencies now that used only Macs across the business and had a really fun time signing in to and integrating 58 Google services every time they hired someone new.

It's possible people may continue to use Google Workspaces in these places, however, the fact that there was never even an Apple option was always wild to me.

Who will Apple serve? Users, Apple or their partners?

It has always been Apple > Users > Partners.

There's a reason why Microsoft is still the king of enterprises. Anybody getting involved with this with Apple will deserve everything thats coming their way

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.

Worth repeating: Never tie your personal phone to your work stuff.

One of the last great consumer companies is going B2B

It would be great if you could get correct invoice and pay price without VAT in EU as a VAT registered business. It is incredible they can get around without providing such a basic thing for so long.

> Starting April 14, Apple Business will be available as a free service in the U.S. and 200+ countries and regions to new and existing users of Apple Business Connect, Apple Business Essentials, and Apple Business Manager.

Does this mean — Always Free or Introductory Free for now?

When Apple vertically integrates it works for them. All the way from the cloud to the OS to the hardware. Pretty sure this will beat out tools like JAMF on user privacy alone by running trusted MDM adjacent tools in kernel space.

Yes sure you can use a different tool for any of these, defaults dominate for the same reason Google pays ~15 billion to be the default search engine on iPhones.

Apple's really late to this.

I occasionally trial complete switches to Apple services to see if they're viable as Google alternatives. This weekend was Apple maps and it's finally met my standard of "usable", though not quite "good". One of the places it beat Google maps was the lack of integrated advertising places, which have enshittified the latter.

I'm glad Apple announced their own plans to enshittify before I got my hopes up.

It would be nice to kick google to the curb. I hope this product matures.

Hopefully some actual competition against GSuite (or whatever it's called these days)

Wow, Apple's finally competing with Google and Microsoft, I can see businesses adopting this everywhere lol, then again Idk as a lot of companies are already in Google and Microsoft's ecosystem.

Will this allow iPad profiles? I think that’s a feature in edu? Would be a game changer.

I assume this is a SaaS by Apple which covers some parts of Workday and Google suite for the beginning

They're basically planning to enter the market where Microsoft has dominant position.

It is very funny that a business-oriented product does not highlight Apple's business productivity software in iWork (Pages/Numbers/Keynote).

Hard pass on ads in apple maps. Their navigation was already pretty terrible, this was the reminder I needed to download something else

Feels like yet another distraction. I personally believe Apple would benefit from a renewed focus. Product lines are growing, software too, software qualify is not doing well... this is the same pattern that got Apple into a mess before Jobs returned. Sure, things are not exactly the same but it feels like time is echoing here.

I am sure "BUT BUSINESS AND MONEY" is the answer but that feels like a cop out in this case.

So they try to pull a Microsoft?

I'm linking my keytrace.dev: did:plc:6ayddqghxhciedbaofoxkcbs

Machines spec’d and priced for education? Support for businesses?

I remember this!

I had to look at my calendar to be sure it wasn’t 2001

>Company data remains secure while employee data remains private, with cryptographic separation of work and personal data on devices.

Does this mean that I'm able to enroll two Apple Accounts on an iPhone at once? Or does Apple actually think that I'm gonna be storing personal data, such as my health data, on a company device with a company-managed Apple Account?

At the moment I just have two iPhones: my personal iPhone that has my data and is connected to my Apple Watch, and my work iPhone, which sits on a desk and does nothing. The separate Apple Account on the work one means that I can't connect it to an Apple Watch and I can't download my apps on it, so you either can't accumulate any personal data on the device, or you need to submit all of your personal data to your employer's Apple Account. Including whatever health data your Apple Watch produces.

Incredible. What is this? Actual competition? I don't believe my eyes. Is Apple search next?

now Apple is going for the jagular.

if they can also monetize - location api - via Apple Maps + business messaging that's easily 3+ Billion of revenue yearly.

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

do they demand 30% of turnover?

business.apple.com doesn't work in Firefox, it redirects you to https://business.apple.com/abm_unsupported_browser?reason=Br...

Fuck you Apple.

A non-terrible MDM that actually works would be really nice. The rest I doubt they get much traction on. Gmail is too easy, Google docs and sheets if you don't need Microsoft is also way better than Apple's free apps.

Nothing like account termination with all your corporate email with no recourse and support because fuck you that's why.

Absolutely do not touch this product with a ten-foot pole.

Capitalism works, it may work slowly enough for HN to complain but it works. When MSFT fails their customers, Apple picks up the tab...

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