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Apple Business
- yalogin 7mo agoThis is probably an attempt to retarget the education space more with the launch of the neo. Of course targeting a bigger enterprise space is not a bad idea
- georgeburdell 7mo agoOne of the last great consumer companies is going B2B
- dagmx 7mo agoApple always had a B2B component. This is just the latest attempt to not make it completely subpar.
- furyofantares 7mo agoThis sucks. This page makes it clear this is the motivation for "Ads on Maps", as they talk about it prominently here - they are now directly selling the attention of their device consumers to their business customers. I guess they were doing that before in the App Store, which is of course also awful.
- Barbing 7mo agoTheir voice assistant is somewhat opinionated about how it will search the App Store for you https://i.ibb.co/zV8d9gbc/IMG-2177.jpg https://i.ibb.co/zV8d9gbc/IMG-2177.jpg They dynamically reveal 1-3 results and only show a “see more options in App Store” button when they feel like it.
- lvspiff 7mo agoits the only path to go to be able to continue to support their pricing models - they've priced the consumer/pro-sumer out of the market prettymuch and so B2B is the more sustainable paying population.
- kstrauser 7mo agoThe company that just made a $600 Macbook?
- bigyabai 7mo agoYes, the phone company that is known for taking home a bronze medal in personal computing for the past 30 years running. Apple knows the score internally, this won't change the world any more than the 12" Retina Macbook did.
- mpweiher 7mo agoThe world's firs trillion dollar and three trillion dollar company. Yes, completely insignificant. The company that captures 60-70% of the global PC industry's profits. Definitely completely insignificant. Apple has known the score internally for decades and is laughing that score all the way to the bank.
- bigyabai 7mo agoNone of that refutes anything that was said. macOS is a third-class citizen measured by market share, and the total sum of annual Mac profits is lower than what the iPad ecosystem makes in a year. Consumers do not want the Mac. Datacenters don't want Apple Silicon. People want the iPhone, they want Airpods, but the M-series Macs have spent 5 years changing absolutely nothing.
- philistine 7mo ago> and the total sum of annual Mac profits is lower than what the iPad ecosystem makes in a year. So the company that makes between 50-60% of all profits in personal computers has created a market where it makes 100% of the profits, but albeit smaller than the whole PC market. That's terrrrible, what was Apple thinking! Market share is far from everything when people live in poverty and do not have money to spend on good hardware and software. Apple makes stuff for affluent people, and then makes a ton of money from those rich folks. Making Apple the most valuable company in the history of humanity. Boy, that's a terrible place to be in!
- amelius 7mo agoThey need to go OEM.
- nhubbard 7mo agoThey did it in the 1990s and it failed so hard that it almost took down the company.
- amelius 7mo agoWhy can others do it?
- dhosek 7mo agoWho has successfully managed this kind of transition? The obvious case is IBM which is now essentially a consulting company and doesn’t sell PCs anymore.
- nielsbot 7mo agoApple's entire success story is their vertical integration. They can't do that and OEM. As for the PC makers: they don't innovate. Microsoft doesn't care who sells PCs, Intel doesn't care who sells PCs. Every PC maker is essentially an assembly company. If you appreciate Apple's innovation in the laptop space over the past x years, then you don't want Apple to be an OEM.
- mindwok 7mo agoI had the same thought. When you're a B2B and B2C company and you have to make a bold decision, the B wins because they hold the enterprise $$$.
- andyferris 7mo agoI think what they've announced is the best fit for small businesses, not large enterprises. They can still treat it as a B2C-style service - many tiny customers with similar needs. Mom and Pop can now get a domain name through Apple, with email accounts - for a lot of people that might be the only way they'd know how to do something like that. The business needs here aren't so different to family manangement features, say. Throwing in Entra ID / Google Workspace authentication and multiple Apple IDs per device is probably the most "interesting" part as to where that ends up in the distant future.
- sneak 7mo agoApple has gone the way of AmEx and Uber. There are no massmarket "great consumer companies" left in the USA, as far as I can tell.
- dev_tools_lab 7mo ago[flagged]
- dehrmann 7mo agoApple's really late to this.
- AndrewKemendo 7mo agoApple is “late” to everything which is why it’s the leader Being early is the same as being wrong and there’s no business value in costly exploration of new territory at least in the 21st century Name me a single company that is still in business and dominating a market based on being first to market with a new product.
- bitpush 7mo agoVision Pro.
- d-us-vb 7mo agoA costly gamble for tech they really wanted that wasn't mature yet.
- unshavedyak 7mo agoHonestly seems like a supportive argument. Yea, your amendment clearly shows Apple isn't always right/late, but Vision Pro is an example of them being early and how far they miss when they're early hah. (I don't have a side in this discussion)
- acdha 7mo agoAnd I’d add that like AI, there was clearly a conflict inside Apple between people who wanted to be in the game and the people who correctly recognized that it wasn’t yet where most consumers wanted.
- bigyabai 7mo agoLike AI, the Vision Pro would have been a better product if Apple told the detractors to shut up and ship out. NPUs and AR are not going to sway consumers or compete for market share. Nevermind the godawful Liquid Glass UX they cooked up and imposed on everyone else...
- bitpush 7mo agoWho 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
- NetMageSCW 7mo agoThousands in annual savings?
- bouk 7mo agoHopefully some actual competition against GSuite (or whatever it's called these days)
- simonw 7mo agoI 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.
- 10729287 7mo agoThere’s a grey one. So obviously, it was timed.
- butILoveLife 7mo ago[dead]
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- SunshineTheCat 7mo agoIt'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.
- philistine 7mo agoThere is now an option ONLY if you're in the US. The mail, calendar etc. stuff is US-only.
- martibravo 7mo ago599$ 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.
- 999900000999 7mo ago*499$ with an EDU discount which definitely means they have margin for business deals. Revenge of the Mac. Theirs simply no reason for any normal person to buy anything else. The year of Linux is deferred yet again.
- martibravo 7mo agoAgreed. I'd love to see what prices companies get for volume purchases. I'm the IT Manager in a small team and if the Neo and this was available last year when we set up MDM/Exchange/SharePoint I would have considered it. Specially on the hardware side, ROI/longevity on an Apple Silicon Macbook is times higher than any given Windows laptop.
- 999900000999 7mo agoLess stuff to go wrong. One point of contact for support. Microsoft isn't going to get it together anytime soon, it's a new dawn.
- RussianCow 7mo ago> Theirs simply no reason for any normal person to buy anything else. My wife currently has an old MacBook with 8GB of memory, and she hits the memory limit somewhat regularly just from web browsing and light productivity work. But whether more breathing room in terms of memory is worth almost double the price...
- alcidesfonseca 7mo agoThe next neo might have the SSDs of the current pros, making swapping less problematic.
- throwaw12 7mo agoI 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.
- giobox 7mo agoHow 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://business.apple.com/preview > https://www.apple.com/business/essentials/ https://www.apple.com/business/essentials/
- martibravo 7mo agoEmail, Calendar and company directory built in, custom domains in emails I think... It's more like a MS365 basic version. Which for most small teams is more than enough
- workfromspace 7mo agoMaybe also 200 countries included, instead of just the USA?
- jacobgkau 7mo agoOne of the footnotes at the bottom of the page says: > Apple Business Essentials, Apple Business Manager, and Apple Business Connect will no longer be available once Apple Business launches. So it's a consolidation. They call out Business Connect data as "including claimed locations, place card information, photos, organization information, account details, and more," so that's some of what differs from Business Essentials.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- pier25 7mo ago[dead]
- AlotOfReading 7mo agoI 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.
- SamuelAdams 7mo agoSo do enterprises still need Jamf [1]? For context, Jamf is one of the most common MDM tools for organizations. [1]: https://www.jamf.com/ https://www.jamf.com/
- awakeasleep 7mo agoBig yes. Enterprises need support and a relationship with their supplier where their needs can change product direction. Jamf will do that. Apple will not.
- drcongo 7mo agoDunno 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.
- bigyabai 7mo agoA 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.
- drcongo 7mo agoBy business relationship I meant B2B. They're excellent.
- awakeasleep 7mo agoI have managed multiple relationships with Apple business and the only thing I can think you could possibly be talking about is having a local store reserve devices for you to buy. As far as identifying a bug in the software and getting it fixed, or requesting a feature, you run into a brick wall. Taking that feedback from customers is not the Apple way. This is why there is a market for third party MDM companies in the first place.
- monegator 7mo agoWill 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.
- embedding-shape 7mo agoI 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.
- iknowstuff 7mo agoHaha ah of course. It’s not like you ever actually owned them in the first place.
- Marsymars 7mo agoA bit like the awful workflow around developer agreements in App Store Connect. Every few months our CI breaks because Apple has updated one agreement or another and someone has to go pester the executive who's marked as the account owner and has legal authority to sign new agreements to unbreak our CI. It's also impossible to delegate this authority to anyone other than the account owner, and there's no concept of shared or service accounts, so nobody other than the account owner, with access to their 2FA method is able to do this. Heaven forbid if the account owner was ever to put their 2FA method as a personal device / phone and then leave the company.
- monegator 7mo agoAll of these, too. Then for some goddamn reason i no longer can just input the username and password: for one of the developer accounts it has decided that i also have to decide wether i want to authenticate with an apple device, or by password. So it's another couple of clicks i can't get rid of
- creantum 7mo agoI had to look at my calendar to be sure it wasn’t 2001
- Brajeshwar 7mo ago> 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?
- martibravo 7mo agoI understand it's free to set up the business but iCloud, AppleCare and Email/Calendar storage past the free (I suppose tiny) allowance are paid. As Apple loves, freemium with in-app purchases!
- minimaxir 7mo agoIt is very funny that a business-oriented product does not highlight Apple's business productivity software in iWork (Pages/Numbers/Keynote).
- steve1977 7mo agoI thought that's now considered creator productivity software.
- Nevermark 7mo agoMachines spec’d and priced for education? Support for businesses? I remember this!
- jwlake 7mo agoA 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.
- rjrjrjrj 7mo agoIs it possible to make a non-terrible MDM? Not a particular area of expertise for me, but the times I've had to deal with it just seemed like an inherently complex and messy problem.
- jwlake 7mo agoI would expect Apple to actually simplify the problem and not overreach and just do activation / provisioning / deactivation / lock and none of the other stuff MDMs try to do that introduces the complexity.
- p2detar 7mo agoThat's because it is a complex and messy problem. Especially MDMs that try to unify the experience for fundamentally different platforms like Apple's and Google's, and even Microsoft's. I think if it's a platform-dedicated solution it actually does have the chance to be much easier to operate. So this thing by Apple looks interesting.
- joshstrange 7mo agoThey’ve had a MDM solution for a number of years now, i’ve not used it because the price was higher than I could afford so I can’t speak to if it actually works or how it is compared to their competitors. I can say that the MDM solution I went with leaves a lot to be desired, but it works and it’s cheap. Since I’m only managing iPads, I really wanted to go with Apple for the simplicity, but, like I said, the price was too high (at the time at least).
- zb3 7mo agoSo will Apple users be able disable these ads in maps?
- cdrnsf 7mo agoI would expect, much like the App Store, they will not. Their maps will give you directions to navigate the enshittification curve.
- lowdude 7mo agoThe nice thing about many of the native apps compared to their Google pendants is the absence of ads, with the glaring exception of the app store, which looks like a dumpster-fire. It is so disheartening to see the trend of shoving ads everywhere continue with Apple as well. I guess the profits are just too tempting to stick with idealistic UX decisions, if there was any of that left in the first place.
- wereHamster 7mo agobusiness.apple.com doesn't work in Firefox, it redirects you to https://business.apple.com/abm_unsupported_browser?reason=Browser%20Type https://business.apple.com/abm_unsupported_browser?reason=Br... Fuck you Apple.
- Alifatisk 7mo agoSupported browser: Safari (14.1 or later) Chrome (87 or later) Microsoft Edge (87 or later) https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-business-manager/program-requirements-axm6d9dc7acf/web https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-business-manager/progr... We live in fantastic times
- lowdude 7mo agoYes, and it works with a user agent switcher extension for Firefox, which is always the cherry on top.
- foresterre 7mo agoThis is annoying, but that they use user-agent solely to check irritates me even more; even (alternative) Chromium based browser like Vivaldi don't work out of the box. I usually use Vivaldi as an alternative when Firefox doesn't work. It's 2026. I think we can expect more from Apple. It's not a small indie company after all.
- alexchapman 7mo agoWow, 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.
- jryio 7mo agoWhen 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.
- meego 7mo agoI 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.
- geoffharcourt 7mo agoThe 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.)
- cocoflunchy 7mo agoI'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
- FireBeyond 7mo agoApple and MDM has always been a shit show. In the days as recently as Ventura (last time I tried it), MDM bypass was as simple as "null route 4 DNS entries during install process, remove null routing after install complete, and never be bothered by it again". This is on Apple Silicon. With no workarounds or anything, upgrades work all the way up to Tahoe. Like really Apple, that's your device "locking"? I could test activate my work Mac with my personal Apple ID while doing this, no alarm bells, nothing, effectively "It's your laptop now".
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- zzyzxd 7mo agoThis 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.
- alchemist1e9 7mo agoI 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.
- zzyzxd 7mo agoYou are right. I didn't read the terms. Looks like ABE can only be used by a business entity.
- Melatonic 7mo agoFor home use I think you can just generate configuration profiles manually ? If you don't want to pay
- connorgurney 7mo agoI’ve been doing exactly this with Jamf Pro for my personal devices. I’ll be interested to see if I can scrap it now.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 7mo agoIncredible. What is this? Actual competition? I don't believe my eyes. Is Apple search next?
- iknowstuff 7mo agothey had an opening in search with Siri and AI and missed it.
- steinvakt2 7mo agoNot necessarily missed. Maybe just late.
- dfabulich 7mo agoStrategically, 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.
- sleepybrett 7mo agoSeems like par for the course for a product launch like this. I'll see where they are in a year.
- gowld 7mo agoWho would pay them for it before "developers fixed their stuff"?
- 9dev 7mo agoPeople fooled by an expectation of quality extrapolated from their end-user experience. Alternatively, people who have to carry out orders from managers who never have to interact with it personally.
- Waterluvian 7mo agoThe way it works is that Apple would have committed more resources if the projected outcome was more revenue. By choosing to approach it as a free option, they committed a free option's worth of resourcing to it.
- hnlmorg 7mo ago> 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. Apple can already easily afford those developers. They’re not exactly running at a loss ;) Plus given how each new iteration of macOS and iOS is a steady step backwards for usability, I don’t have a huge amount of trust in their abilities to fix Business if it had become a strategic product tomorrow.
- ark4n 7mo agoFeels 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.
- Hexigonz 7mo agoHard pass on ads in apple maps. Their navigation was already pretty terrible, this was the reminder I needed to download something else
- wigster 7mo agodo they demand 30% of turnover?
- kibwen 7mo agoOf course, that's only fair.
- popupeyecare 7mo agoWill this allow iPad profiles? I think that’s a feature in edu? Would be a game changer.
- connorgurney 7mo agoDoesn’t Shared iPad enable that already?
- egorfine 7mo agoNothing 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.
- FergusArgyll 7mo agoCapitalism works, it may work slowly enough for HN to complain but it works. When MSFT fails their customers, Apple picks up the tab...
- tynanpurdy 7mo ago[flagged]
- Hamuko 7mo ago>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.
- miskin 7mo agoIt 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.
- DeathArrow 7mo agoSo they try to pull a Microsoft?
- dzonga 7mo agonow 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.
- ecommerceguy 7mo agoIt would be nice to kick google to the curb. I hope this product matures.
- jms703 7mo agoWorth repeating: Never tie your personal phone to your work stuff.
- dandellion 7mo agoWorth repeating as well: Never tie your work stuff to Apple.
- LiamhCryptokeys 7mo ago[dead]
- julianozen 7mo agoDoes Apple support multiple iCloud accounts on a device yet?
- jiveturkey 7mo agono, but many apps can independently use a different Apple (nee iCloud) Account specifically for that app. that said, you can create multiple users per macOS device, and each can have a different Apple Account. that's a nightmare, because some significant areas of device management assume a single Apple Account. So for example you can use a 2nd account to get around Activation Lock in some cases.
- npilk 7mo agoCan you not make two user accounts on a Mac and sign them into different iCloud accounts? I know you're limited to one on iPhone and iPad, though.
- connorgurney 7mo agoMac requires separate users as other have said. However, for iOS and iPadOS, the answer is “Sort of”. As taken from https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/deployment/dep4d9e9cd26/web https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/deployment/dep4d9e9cd2...: > If a user is signed in with a personal Apple Account and Managed Apple Account, Sign in with Apple automatically uses the Managed Apple Account for managed apps and the personal Apple Account for unmanaged apps.
- joshstrange 7mo agoIt’s not clear to me if the MDM is included for free as well or if that will continue to be charged separately (or on top). I looked into their MDM, but ended up going with Mosyle instead because the costs were significantly lower for me.
- andyferris 7mo agoI believe it said it will be free, starting April 14.
- bilsbie 7mo agoIf I’m understanding this correctly it’s a one stop shop for an entire out of the box it department.
- drnick1 7mo agoOut of curiosity, why would any business with an IT department choose this over an in-house solution built from standard open source components. Think email server on premises or in the cloud using postfix/dovecot/LDAP, maybe Nextcloud with OnlyOffice, Jitsi as a Zoom substitute, etc. These are all mature solutions that are free of vendor lock-in, and can be easily managed by any competent IT team.
- jiveturkey 7mo agoyou wouldn't. a business without an IT department would choose this.
- tonymet 7mo agoso they can fire the IT department and save $500k+ / year
- lvl155 7mo agoI detest Apple for constantly bothering me at the store for small business sales pitch. Apple Store experience has really gone down the hill.
- pjmlp 7mo agoGiven previous Apple adventures on the server room, not sure if I would bet on this staying around.
- poemxo 7mo agoThis is cute but it's missing programmable documents (Microsoft) or hooks to use AI (Google) to really challenge either competitor.
- legitster 7mo agoThis announcement is pretty sad. If you're wondering why Apple is an IT department nightmare, this announcement is more of a confession. Today your corporate MacBook can have ... preinstalled software! And user groups (for the Apple store and iCloud). Wait, there's more! > In addition, customers can now set up business email, calendar, and directory services with their own domain name for seamless and elevated communication and collaboration. Wow, a custom domain name! > Apple Business enables automated Managed Apple Account creation for new employees through integration with an identity service provider, including Google Workspace, Microsoft Entra ID, and more. In the year 2026, I can finally start logging into my corporate laptop with my corporate ID. Wow! Them stapling on the announcement of advertisements for Apple Maps is especially hilarious. I don't think the people managing fleet devices at a corporation are the same people who are interested in setting their location ad strategy. But Apple saw they had two vaguely business-y things at the same time and thought they would really hit it off together. I have to imagine that the Apple Neo is heavily aimed at volume sales - low level white collar workers and education. These features seem to be hastily assembled to meet the needs of these potential buyers.
- general_reveal 7mo agoApple will probably deliver the best unified AI experience for productivity. Digging into Microsoft’s domain (which has been seriously selling off). Your workers will want iOS and right now its perfect timing to sell LLM subs. This is a very aggressive and opportunistic move.
- bitpush 7mo agoTrue, like Siri. Sorry Apple Intelligence.
- seawsurf 7mo agoWhy people bother with all of this to lock the environment into some kind of corporate nightmare? Why not allow some freedom for the worker. I don't see the appeal, it feels like a claustrophobic cage
- aetherspawn 7mo agoA few months ago, on a price hike announcement for Office365 posted here to YC HN, I made a comment that MDM is expensive, had high MOQs (Mosyle, Jamf) and fundamentally still doesn’t work as well as Windows and Intune. I also lamented that Microsoft keeps hiking prices and that it’s silly we’re normalising $20+ per user per month when we used to pay once for these things. I lamented how Apple hardware is now the same price as the other vendors, yet best in class for quality and how Dell and HP are hiking their laptop pricing lately due to supply shortages. Especially on their pro lines, which have been quoted to me as twice the price of equivalent MacBooks. I mentioned Apple would be silly not to make a further global move into MDM and email hosting territory. Particularly for small business owners: 1-10 person shops and retail who use mostly cloud based POS applications. Others responded at the time, and I agreed with it, that it seems unlikely Apple would make a business move. After all, they don’t have much history with business, or perhaps they did but they didn’t like the market and wrapped it up. Well, with this announcement, and with the confirmation that *Apple native email hosting is coming* I am very excited to trial it when it lands in April. Over the last few months, our small business has already cracked it and downgraded most of our email hosting to Exchange Plan 1 and dropped the desktop Office suite in favour of Pages and Numbers, which are both free and absolutely working fine. In fact, I’ve found Pages to be less laggy and more stable than Word in very large documents such as 300+ pages. The logical next step for us is to fully drop our third-party MDM and review whether Apple’s native MDM, email and identity systems are adequate for transition. We have saved thousands of $$ so far and stand to save a lot more!
- anizan 7mo agoApple should compete with Google workplace or at the very least at least offer custom domain e-mail inboxes.
- andyferris 7mo agoCustom domains (BYO or buy through Apple) and email hosting is in the announcement, too.
- d--b 7mo agoAre they taking 30% of the payments?
- arikrahman 7mo agoAfter bricking a 2 year old phone after a software update, I'm reluctant with handling my entire business with them.
- MagicMoonlight 7mo agoIf Apple can turn it into a replacement for 365, they could kill microslop altogether. They rinse basically every organisation in the country, even though their products suck.
- eastbound 7mo agoThe big news here is the MDM, for free! It used to be necessary to use a slew of dodgy providers like Jama, with is 2000 website (and why would I trust any small company with all my enterprise data). ABM didn’t provide the MDM part and that was most annoying. It seems normal to integrate account management and MDM, so I’d love to use it. That ABM is full of bugs, the Apple team incompetent, and D&B being Dumb and Dunber is another question.
- obsidianbases1 7mo agoHey Siri, should I use Apple Business?
- cheriot 7mo agoJamf shareholders got very lucky. The acquisition closed less than 2 months ago. Tough day for the new PE owners, though. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/francisco-partners-completes-acquisition-jamf-133500875.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/francisco-partners-completes-...
- neeeeeeal 7mo agoNot so sure about this. The level of configurability in AB is significantly less than what is available in established platforms like Jamf, Addigy, etc. The AB offering seems squarely targeted at smaller orgs, and may be a great fit, but is nowhere near as mature as a midsize/enterprise customer would need. That said, who knows where this will go in the coming years.
- DrewADesign 7mo agoWow… I might be missing something, but not once did I see AI mentioned! Apple is no slouch in the marketing department— this is surely a deliberate omission. It looks like marketers are finally catching up with public sentiment. I’m sure a lot of people will say it was their abject failure to productize their AI initiatives driving this decision, but I doubt it: the people they’re trying to sell business services to probably don’t know, let alone care about that. I think this term and the industry hype around it is just too radioactive to be beneficial in copy. I’m happy to be corrected if I missed anything, or entertain alternate conclusions. I’m no expert.
- hansonkd 7mo agoApple is terrible for business. Every portal and product require a new apple id. apple store and apple business can't be same apple id. your device id can't be the same as either. Its madness. Last count i have 4 apple ids that I have to shuffle around.
- HarHarVeryFunny 7mo agoI read the first page of text of Apple's announcement, and still have absolutely zero idea what "Apple Business" is, apart from the fact that it will "manage devices" and "configure employee groups". Since I have no employees and my devices are under control, I guess it's not for me, whatever it is.
- MathMonkeyMan 7mo agoIt's a way to manage a fleet of corporate workstations, and some other things that businesses with lots of people on laptops end up needing.
- jimmoores 7mo agoThe statement that Apple has been supporting businesses for decades is just the most self-serving bunch of crap. You can tell how thin this is by the way they push local ads on Maps as some kind of headline feature. What a joke.
- aucisson_masque 7mo ago> including a new option coming this summer that will enable businesses in the U.S. and Canada to place local ads in Maps during key search and discovery moments. It's happening. The end is near !!!
- danpasca 7mo ago> 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. > Apple Business Essentials, Apple Business Manager, and Apple Business Connect will no longer be available once Apple Business launches. Business Essentials customers will no longer be charged their monthly service fee for device management after April 14. Existing Business Connect data — including claimed locations, place card information, photos, organization information, account details, and more — will automatically migrate to Apple Business at launch. I don't get it. Is this free? If so this is insane value compared to everything else.
- nektro 7mo agobetween the neo and now this, apple is setting itself to eat a lot of google's lunch
- Traster 7mo agoThis is just Apple saying "We own all user compute now". Yeah you guys can fight over data centres. But every device that a user physically has will be an Apple device. They've now got the full range of price points from low cost to prosumer, and they've got the software stack to back it up so you can have your sales staff running neos logging in to their CRM, engineers running their Mabcook Pros. It's kind of insane the advantage Apple Silicon has brought along with the brutal price competition PC sales. The only question I have is whether this touches the sides. That is to say - they sell a billion iPhones, is the consumer laptop and low end business sales enough to bump the numbers. They're thinner margins, and that market has to some extent been on a downward trend (which is why the stock market is running to data centres where the compute actually happens).
- fhub 7mo agoWe use Jamf Pro for a small company. I'm not a big fan of the minimum 20 seat pricing model. I hope this will be something small companies can move to easily and have enough coverage to satisfy security reviews.
- cat-turner 7mo agoAs long as I don't have to buy/pay for software to manage devices I provide to employees I am satisfied.
- astafrig 7mo ago> including a new option coming this summer that will enable businesses in the U.S. and Canada to place local ads in Maps during key search and discovery moments. The enshittification knows no bounds.
- wackget 7mo agoYeah that's great and all, but can I get something which will let me delete iPhone contacts in bulk? It's 2026 and you have to delete contacts one at a time, or press and slide to select a group of them until you reach one you don't want to delete, delete that group, then start over again. Other basic functionality I'd like includes being able to remote control an iPhone from a device which isn't a modern Mac, and being able to plug in an iPhone and use it as a removable storage device.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- BLACKCRAB 7mo ago[dead]
- pugchat 7mo ago[dead]
- mostertoaster 7mo ago> Enhanced Discoverability in Apple Maps My first thought from that heading was “my company will know where I am at all times”. Though that was not the point thankfully.
- loeber 7mo agoI previously tried buying Apple for Business and it was an endless runaround with terrible signup nterfaces and having to call dumb flunkies. The whole process sucked and was disrespectful to their business customers, who do not have the time to deal with such nonsense.
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- Zufriedenheit 7mo agoApple future strategy seems to be to sell ad placements throughout their ecosystem. Very sad about that. :( I especially chose Apple because of the clean experience.
- bobosmrad 7mo agoIncidentally, today I saw this video of Steve giving a speech in 1999, published just a week ago. I hadn't seen it before and wouldn't be commenting weren't it for the video. You may, and probably will, call me a fanboy or argue that reminiscing the good old times when Apple had 4 products are long gone and we live in a different world now. That is true, we live in a different world and focusing on 4 products wouldn't suffice for Apple to survive. And now again, you may, and probably will, think that I'm burying my head in sand and ignoring many aspects a business needs to consider in order to survive, just to focus on the ones I like or am nostalgic about. But there is something very special in this simplicity communicated by Steve in the speech. There is something that makes me want to buy a product when I see clearly what it is I'm buying. On the other hand, there is something very repulsive when I read phrases like: seamless, streamline, gain valuable insights, build trust, in a product announcement. Don't get me wrong, I am indifferent about Apple Business, probably won't use it and it won't harm me either. My observation is just a coincidence having heard the speech and having read the announcement here. Link to video: https://youtu.be/EoM2Y2KO6kU?si=0DybhDUiqKsWG_Nz https://youtu.be/EoM2Y2KO6kU?si=0DybhDUiqKsWG_Nz
- surcap526 7mo ago[dead]
- ryanschaefer 7mo ago> And Apple Business can help millions of companies grow their reach and connect with local customers across Apple Maps, Mail, Wallet, Siri, and more, including a new option coming this summer that will enable businesses in the U.S. and Canada to place local ads in Maps during key search and discovery moments. Apple Business will be available starting Tuesday, April 14, in more than 200 countries and regions Burying the lede about ADs coming to everything in this announcement. Seems like the contract most people implicitly signed when choosing Apple just broke.
- TimByte 7mo agoThere's a real gap for small businesses that are too big for ad-hoc setups but too small for full IT
- jedberg 7mo agoCan I please just have multiple users on my iPads, please?
- connorgurney 7mo agoDoesn’t Shared iPad do exactly this?
- jedberg 7mo agoYes, but you have to have MDM. I don't want to run MDM for my kids.
- connorgurney 7mo agoAh, sorry, my bad - assumed you were referring to a business use-case, given the context, but makes sense.
- eemil 7mo agoWould be nice if you could buy a Macbook with a proper on-site warranty. Dell, Lenovo, HP will gladly send a technician to your house, and their NBD warranties cost about the same as Applecare. And they don't care if you're an enterprise or an individual buying one measly laptop.
- sneak 7mo agoThey're cheap enough and Apple stores ubiquitous enough that you just go and replace it as needed, and send the now-defunct one in for repair.
- ExoticPearTree 7mo agoI was hoping to see more geographies in which AppleCare would be available.