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(HTM) Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
(HTM) Apple Business
ExoticPearTree wrote 19 hours 39 min ago:
I was hoping to see more geographies in which AppleCare would be
available.
eemil wrote 22 hours 12 min ago:
Would 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 wrote 21 hours 4 min ago:
They'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.
jedberg wrote 23 hours 32 min ago:
Can I please just have multiple users on my iPads, please?
connorgurney wrote 21 hours 55 min ago:
Doesnât Shared iPad do exactly this?
jedberg wrote 21 hours 39 min ago:
Yes, but you have to have MDM. I don't want to run MDM for my
kids.
TimByte wrote 1 day ago:
There's a real gap for small businesses that are too big for ad-hoc
setups but too small for full IT
ryanschaefer wrote 1 day 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.
bobosmrad wrote 1 day ago:
Incidentally, 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:
(HTM) [1]: https://youtu.be/EoM2Y2KO6kU?si=0DybhDUiqKsWG_Nz
Zufriedenheit wrote 1 day ago:
Apple 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.
kossov-it wrote 1 day ago:
Considering the discussion here, i am still looking forward to, since
it's the best solution apple provided so far with comprehensive
management and in the end, after enrollment, what do you really need?
the management looks very simple and flawless, all necessary things are
covered (mail, calendar, icloud, backup, management). Excited!
loeber wrote 1 day ago:
I 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.
mostertoaster wrote 1 day ago:
> Enhanced Discoverability in Apple Maps
My first thought from that heading was âmy company will know where I
am at all timesâ. Though that was not the point thankfully.
wackget wrote 1 day ago:
Yeah 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.
yalogin wrote 1 day ago:
This 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
astafrig wrote 1 day 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.
cat-turner wrote 1 day ago:
As long as I don't have to buy/pay for software to manage devices I
provide to employees I am satisfied.
fhub wrote 1 day ago:
We 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.
Traster wrote 1 day ago:
This 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).
nektro wrote 1 day ago:
between the neo and now this, apple is setting itself to eat a lot of
google's lunch
danpasca wrote 1 day 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 â including claimed locations, place card information,
photos, organization information, account details, and more â 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.
aucisson_masque wrote 1 day 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 !!!
jimmoores wrote 1 day ago:
The 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.
HarHarVeryFunny wrote 1 day ago:
I 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 wrote 1 day ago:
It'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.
hansonkd wrote 1 day ago:
Apple 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.
DrewADesign wrote 1 day ago:
Wow⦠I might be missing something, but not once did I see AI
mentioned! Apple is no slouch in the marketing departmentâ this is
surely a deliberate omission. It looks like marketers are finally
catching up with public sentiment. Iâm 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 theyâre trying to sell
business services to probably donât 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.
Iâm happy to be corrected if I missed anything, or entertain
alternate conclusions. Iâm no expert.
cheriot wrote 1 day ago:
Jamf shareholders got very lucky. The acquisition closed less than 2
months ago. Tough day for the new PE owners, though.
(HTM) [1]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/francisco-partners-completes-ac...
neeeeeeal wrote 1 day ago:
Not 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.
obsidianbases1 wrote 1 day ago:
Hey Siri, should I use Apple Business?
eastbound wrote 1 day ago:
The 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 didnât provide the MDM part and that was
most annoying. It seems normal to integrate account management and MDM,
so Iâd love to use it.
That ABM is full of bugs, the Apple team incompetent, and D&B being
Dumb and Dunber is another question.
MagicMoonlight wrote 1 day ago:
If 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.
arikrahman wrote 1 day ago:
After bricking a 2 year old phone after a software update, I'm
reluctant with handling my entire business with them.
anizan wrote 1 day ago:
Apple should compete with Google workplace or at the very least at
least offer custom domain e-mail inboxes.
andyferris wrote 1 day ago:
Custom domains (BYO or buy through Apple) and email hosting is in the
announcement, too.
d--b wrote 1 day ago:
Are they taking 30% of the payments?
aetherspawn wrote 1 day ago:
A 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 doesnât work as well as
Windows and Intune. I also lamented that Microsoft keeps hiking prices
and that itâs silly weâre 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 donât have
much history with business, or perhaps they did but they didnât 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,
Iâve 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 Appleâs native MDM,
email and identity systems are adequate for transition. We have saved
thousands of $$ so far and stand to save a lot more!
legitster wrote 1 day ago:
This 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.
stephenr wrote 1 day ago:
It's an announcement that they're providing first party integrated
first party services for something that until now has largely relied
on third party solutions.
Not knowing about the exiting solutions to provision/manage Macs is
one thing. Not knowing about them and claiming they're inferior
because of what you didn't know is just bizarre.
I don't know what it is about the type of people who end up doing pc
support, but an irrational dislike of Macs seems to be systemic. I
worked in an IT department when Novell was still a thing, an a senior
guy with years of Unix experience would make jokes about "toy
operating system" while also alternating between screaming at and
practically fellating windows XP.
weslleyskah wrote 1 day ago:
Why 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
umvi wrote 19 hours 27 min ago:
Regulatory compliance. If you want to sell your product to the UK,
for example, you have to (see: UK Cyber Essentials). The more you
try to expand your market, the more regulations you will run into
that are solved with spyware and locked down computers.
notatoad wrote 21 hours 28 min ago:
ever worked in IT support? letting people customize their
environment both increases the amount of support that users
require, and increases the difficulty of providing that support.
a laptop in a stock configuration can be swapped out for a new one
when it breaks. a laptop that has three years of accumulated
customizations installed on it means that the employee wants their
laptop back when it breaks, and they want it fixed ASAP.
when you're supporting a user who doesn't know how to type a URL
into their web browser, it's a whole lot easier if you don't have
to start that call with asking what web browser they're using.
microtonal wrote 1 day ago:
A lot of it is compliance. To get some types of customers you need
to pass some security compliance certification or checks, which
often have requirements like only giving access to crucial
infrastructure when devices are up-to-date, the possibility to
remote-disable/erase a device when it is stolen, some kind of
anti-virus installed (yeah, I know), etc.
I can understand the underlying reasons, you would be surprised how
many employees have bad security hygiene, which becomes an issue
when they have access to high value information, tokens, etc. But
since they often somewhat draconian rules, they tend to have bad
side-effects (similar to password reminders). E.g. Linux users will
often set up ClamAV to fulfill the anti-virus requirement. However,
ClamAV parses untrusted data in C code without any sandboxing, so
it probably opens a new attack vector (as opposed to Windows
Defender, which as far as AFAIR uses sandboxing or a micro-VM to
parse untrusted data).
pjc50 wrote 1 day ago:
Single-sign-on is actually useful.
Most of the rest of this stuff .. well, who is responsible if the
laptop is compromised?
eastbound wrote 1 day ago:
SOC2 requires to ensure all computers have the software updates
installed. While certification apps can check every desktop with a
monitor, ABM could just do it and enforce it.
SOC2 also encourages SSO.
legitster wrote 1 day ago:
The most clear and obvious use case is for school computers. You do
NOT want to provision student devices en masse without protections
(for both the students and the district). I envision this is a deal
breaker right now that Apple is dealing with.
Even if your Corp doesn't want to do full user surveillance,
there's still a lot of advantages to group policy. Roll out new
software instantly, SSO enforcement, remote troubleshooting, etc.
ryukoposting wrote 1 day ago:
Because corporations like to control their peons. I'm sure your
work laptop is laden with the same kind of corporate bullshit, it's
just that MS Exchange stopped being a hot topic like 25 years ago.
Arainach wrote 1 day ago:
There are many reasons.
* Preprovisioning - devices have the right certificates and know
about your corporate networks. They have the necessary apps and
just work.
* Tracking - if a device is lost or stolen, monitor where it is and
remotely lock or wipe it
* Monitoring - have a log to audit if someone does something
malicious
* Security - reduce the chance of your employees installing
malware, spyware, etc. whether by accident or intention
* Locking things down - put gates in the way of bad actions like
copying sensitive data into public apps or clouds. Even if you're
unable to block everything, attempts to block remind honest
employees and provide strong evidence that anyone who proceeds was
intentionally violating policy and should be fired.
Etc., etc.
dabockster wrote 17 hours 42 min ago:
Bigger one:
* Predictability - eliminating the number of unknown factors that
could cause a person to have issues using their computer. Reminds
me of how a secretary I serviced was somehow able to install
Google Desktop back in the day, and how that caused a massive
argument between my boss and theirs when their computer needed to
be re-imaged. Most IT approved programs are known to store user
data in known locations on a computer, which makes backups and
restorations very easy. Stuff like Google Desktop did not do
that, which means likely breaking someone's workflow in the
re-image process.
general_reveal wrote 1 day ago:
Apple will probably deliver the best unified AI experience for
productivity. Digging into Microsoftâs 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 wrote 21 hours 41 min ago:
True, like Siri.
Sorry Apple Intelligence.
poemxo wrote 1 day ago:
This is cute but it's missing programmable documents (Microsoft) or
hooks to use AI (Google) to really challenge either competitor.
pjmlp wrote 1 day ago:
Given previous Apple adventures on the server room, not sure if I would
bet on this staying around.
lvl155 wrote 1 day ago:
I detest Apple for constantly bothering me at the store for small
business sales pitch. Apple Store experience has really gone down the
hill.
drnick1 wrote 1 day ago:
Out 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.
tonymet wrote 1 day ago:
so they can fire the IT department and save $500k+ / year
jiveturkey wrote 1 day ago:
you wouldn't. a business without an IT department would choose this.
bilsbie wrote 1 day ago:
If Iâm understanding this correctly itâs a one stop shop for an
entire out of the box it department.
hu3 wrote 1 day ago:
No, there's no mention of MDM.
carlesfe wrote 1 day ago:
Ctrl-F MDM
"Apple Business offers built-in mobile device management (MDM)
[...]"
joshstrange wrote 1 day ago:
Itâs 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 wrote 1 day ago:
I believe it said it will be free, starting April 14.
julianozen wrote 1 day ago:
Does Apple support multiple iCloud accounts on a device yet?
connorgurney wrote 1 day ago:
Mac requires separate users as other have said.
However, for iOS and iPadOS, the answer is âSort ofâ.
As taken from [1] :
> 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.
(HTM) [1]: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/deployment/dep4d9e9cd2...
npilk wrote 1 day ago:
Can 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.
jiveturkey wrote 1 day ago:
no, 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.
jms703 wrote 1 day ago:
Worth repeating: Never tie your personal phone to your work stuff.
dandellion wrote 1 day ago:
Worth repeating as well: Never tie your work stuff to Apple.
ecommerceguy wrote 1 day ago:
It would be nice to kick google to the curb. I hope this product
matures.
dzonga wrote 1 day ago:
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.
DeathArrow wrote 1 day ago:
So they try to pull a Microsoft?
miskin wrote 1 day ago:
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.
Hamuko wrote 1 day 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.
FergusArgyll wrote 1 day ago:
Capitalism works, it may work slowly enough for HN to complain but it
works. When MSFT fails their customers, Apple picks up the tab...
egorfine wrote 1 day ago:
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.
popupeyecare wrote 1 day ago:
Will this allow iPad profiles? I think thatâs a feature in edu? Would
be a game changer.
connorgurney wrote 1 day ago:
Doesnât Shared iPad enable that already?
wigster wrote 1 day ago:
do they demand 30% of turnover?
kibwen wrote 1 day ago:
Of course, that's only fair.
Hexigonz wrote 1 day ago:
Hard pass on ads in apple maps. Their navigation was already pretty
terrible, this was the reminder I needed to download something else
ark4n wrote 1 day ago:
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.
dfabulich wrote 1 day ago:
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.
dabockster wrote 17 hours 29 min 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. Instead, Apple Business is a free
side hustle for Apple, a hobby."
I'm wrestling with something similar to this right now in Linux. The
only real player that charges "enough" to have a "absolutely zero
tolerance for base OS breakage" approach to OS development is Red
Hat. Ubuntu LTS is more widespread but only really because it's $0
even for large businesses, and that's honestly reflected in it
sometimes having hardware breakage during a version's initial two
year mainstream support run. Having Windows's business backed level
of "doesn't break" on hardware is rare on Linux.
xp84 wrote 1 day ago:
Agreed, and honestly, Iâm put off by the freeness because I agree
it means that support will be nothing, just the Tier 1 call center
reps who can read you scripts of how to hold down the power button to
reset your computer, etc.
And Iâd be very skeptical any business user anywhere can skate by
on the iCloud Free Tier. Of all the stingy free tiers, itâs that
one.
If they cared, they would make a Teams/Slack equivalent, a Zoom
Killer, maybe a Confluence Killer, and charge per head, and offer
storage tiers comparable to what MS and GOOG do.
(And no, donât even joke that Messages and FaceTime are Slack and
Zoom killers.)
Spooky23 wrote 1 day ago:
Youâre not thinking it through. Thereâs a rich enterprise
ecosystem for MDM. Microsoft, Google, Omnissa, IBM, etc.
They donât want to compete with those partners, and wouldnât be
effective if they did. But, thereâs a gap of smaller companies and
institutions where they benefit from MDM capabilities but donât
have the budget or wherewithal to even know how to shop for MDM.
So they spend a bit of money, give Apple Store reps something to do
and add an incentive to buy another iPhone.
hnlmorg wrote 1 day 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. Theyâre not
exactly running at a loss ;)
Plus given how each new iteration of macOS and iOS is a steady step
backwards for usability, I donât have a huge amount of trust in
their abilities to fix Business if it had become a strategic product
tomorrow.
matthewfcarlson wrote 1 day ago:
The reality is that every business unit needs to justify its
existence and when asking for headcount, itâs easier to point to
a revenue stream youâre tied to rather than âwe help sell some
things to businessesâ
hnlmorg wrote 1 day ago:
I donât disagree with that. But equally most business units in
Apple are not tied to revenue streams. From R&D though to
developers for other non-subscription software. And thatâs
before you then factor in the non-delivery team (eg finance, HR,
lawyers, etc).
So itâs not like a review stream is a requirement.
Moreover, even back when they did have back office tooling as a
revenue stream (eg OSX Server), Apple still left it to slowly rot
before finally discontinuing it.
So I just donât think this is something anyoneâs Apple cares
enough about. If they did, then we wouldnât be having this
conversation to begin with.
raw_anon_1111 wrote 1 day ago:
If that were the case, the only business units that would ever be
get funding would be the hardware sales.
Even with AWS I doubt many of the service teams make enough money
to justify their existence alone.
carlosjobim wrote 1 day ago:
Are you sure Apple does their accounting in that way?
xp84 wrote 1 day ago:
Do you have a reason to believe they donât? Weâre not
talking about some weird or obscure custom, itâs just basic
business ideas.
robotresearcher wrote 1 day ago:
Apple famously doesn't have conventional business units.
(HTM) [1]: https://www.apple.com/careers/pdf/HBR_How_Apple_Is_O...
carlosjobim wrote 1 day ago:
I think the burden of evidence is with you in this case. It
doesn't make sense for Apple to do their accounting with such
a method.
gowld wrote 1 day ago:
Who would pay them for it before "developers fixed their stuff"?
Waterluvian wrote 1 day ago:
The 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.
9dev wrote 1 day ago:
People 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.
sleepybrett wrote 1 day ago:
Seems like par for the course for a product launch like this. I'll
see where they are in a year.
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote 1 day ago:
Incredible. What is this? Actual competition? I don't believe my eyes.
Is Apple search next?
iknowstuff wrote 1 day ago:
they had an opening in search with Siri and AI and missed it.
steinvakt2 wrote 1 day ago:
Not necessarily missed. Maybe just late.
zzyzxd wrote 2 days ago:
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.
connorgurney wrote 1 day ago:
Iâve been doing exactly this with Jamf Pro for my personal devices.
Iâll be interested to see if I can scrap it now.
Melatonic wrote 1 day ago:
For home use I think you can just generate configuration profiles
manually ? If you don't want to pay
alchemist1e9 wrote 1 day ago:
I 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 itâs explicitly against
their policies to use ABE for personal devices and Iâd guess the
same for this new iteration of it.
zzyzxd wrote 1 day ago:
You are right. I didn't read the terms. Looks like ABE can only be
used by a business entity.
meego wrote 2 days ago:
I recently tried setting Apple Business Manager for our â20 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.
classified wrote 1 day ago:
Apple really seems to go out of their way to show users the middle
finger.
TimByte wrote 1 day ago:
Apple's clean separation model only really works if you start that
way from day one
thepratt wrote 1 day ago:
Our recent (ongoing) experience with Apple Business Manager is just
as bad. With no reason or contact they've sent "we can't verify so
we've disabled your account because you don't meet the requirements".
We ring support and they tell us to try again with no additional
information. We then get "we can't verify so we've deleted your
accounts" with no information. "Amazing" "experience".
This is also after they've verified us (and our DUNS number) for app
signing and distribution. We already have a verified account in
another service of theirs!
tom1337 wrote 1 day ago:
Ohh we had a similar experience with Google Cloud. Added our
organization and Domain into their Auth system and suddenly all users
were migrated into a (invisible / transparent) workspace and could no
longer use their calendar or google drive as the workspace had no
free usage like you have on a normal free tier.
clawoo wrote 1 day ago:
I had a "wonderful" experience as well.
I wanted to evaluate it for MDM purposes so I applied for an ABM
account for a company I work for, got soft-approved, created an
entirely new Apple ID (as required by the ABM), used it to log on a
test device I intended to manage, then sort of forgot about it while
awaiting for Apple to conclude their hard-approval for the ABM
account creation.
Apple was supposed to contact the business owner to verify company
details and finalize the process over the next few days, but they
never did.
30 days later they canceled the ABM company account and deleted all
the associated users along with the Apple ID which I used to log into
a testing device, which now became a fairly expensive paperweight.
I had very little expectations about the experience and I was still
disappointed.
TimByte wrote 1 day ago:
This is the kind of failure mode that makes people nervous about
tightly coupled identity + device management
AnthonyMouse wrote 1 day ago:
> Be warned.
This is exactly what I would have expected from an Apple "business"
offering. Apple's whole shtick is to take away most of your choices
so that they can focus on the limited number of things they still
allow you to do. Businesses need the opposite of that.
Businesses will show up needing integrations with multiple existing
third party (often legacy) systems with inherent complexity and then
want something that allows them to manage that complexity since it
can't be eliminated. It's not really possible in that context to have
the experience people otherwise expect Apple to provide, and the
thing Apple normally does will often make it worse by removing
choices you may have needed in order to make interaction with a third
party system less of a pain.
wolvoleo wrote 1 day ago:
It's completely impossible for a 60k employee shop too yeah. They
also want you to rearrange the azure ad the way Apple wants. Also
impossible for us.
And we have like 20k or so users with manually created Apple IDs on
their company email and every one of them has to be manually
resolved. It's a joke.
cyptus wrote 1 day ago:
some years ago i tried this setup for a german company with a special
char in its name (âäâ) and failed because Apple was not able to
match it against DUNS. It took months of support to get it done.
neuroelectron wrote 1 day ago:
>The process is also impossible to cancel.
This sort of thing should probably be illegal.
nuodag wrote 1 day ago:
I also organised this process at work, and it went rather well,
(300ppl 10 year old), but of course no one had health data connected
under the company domain, thats a crazy idea and itâs probably good
apple enforces that to be deleted / moved / disentangled.
It is also clearly described how to move an account that is used
privately to a different domain / mail.
matt_daemon wrote 1 day ago:
Apple's cloud software has been buggy as hell for a long time, at
least for me.
I'm in a family iCloud group with my parents... one day I just woke
up and had all my podcasts and music replaced with my Mum's :/
Would not want this anywhere near a "business" experience
ezfe wrote 1 day ago:
I'm just gonna go ahead and say that I'm not sure what happened
there but either you or your mom signed in with your account on the
other device.
I have a lot of technical understanding with how CloudKit works and
there's not a pathway for what you're describing to come out of a
family group.
jazzyjackson wrote 1 day ago:
Maybe Something to do with Family Purchase Sharing. I didnât
realize when I bought an audio book it would appear in my dadâs
library. Kind of embarrassing. Appleâs help pages make it sound
very opt in but I think there are bugs where libraries are merged
by default. Some say on a quiet night you can still hear Bono
singing âsexy bootsââ¦
ezfe wrote 15 hours 46 min ago:
Libraries are not merged, only purchase history. It does not
download to their device in any scenario automatically.
A lot of people have their iTunes accounts signed in on other
devices which would do what you describe, but not family
sharing.
ukuina wrote 1 day ago:
Hence, "buggy".
jiveturkey wrote 1 day ago:
you only need to do the domain lock part if you plan to use MAIDs.
For 20 people you probably didn't need to do that, at least not at
the same time as the rest. You can do it as a later step, not the
first step.
jillesvangurp wrote 1 day ago:
Same here, I never even got in. I never managed to get in. My account
is good enough to take my money for other things but somehow I can't
manage to onboard into the damn thing so that I can actually manage
devices for my company. I just gave up in the end. Couldn't get it
done.
I'll try again next month see how far I get with this. This needs to
be way simpler than it currently is. Hopefully they fixed a few
things there.
czscout wrote 1 day ago:
Yes, as an IT professional at a company where a few people have
insisted on using Macs, the ABM workflow is by far the most
frustrating, half baked product I've had the displeasure of using.
People love to complain about Entra/Azure AD, but ABM is another
level of obtuse.
pseufaux wrote 1 day ago:
What's bad is that it's so much better than it used to be and still
this bad.
SoleilAbsolu wrote 1 day ago:
FWIW, my experience doing this process for a ~130 person org last
year was pretty painless compared to other Domain Claims I've
initiated for other SAAS vendors (Docusign in particular), and MDM
nightmares (expired JAMF certificates, I'm looking at you).
We had to do it as ppl had made personal Apple accounts using our
domain, meaning if they logged in with such an account and left,
their iPhone magically transformed into an expensive, elegant
paperweight. Due to a setting in our previous MDM we were unable to
migrate data cleanly using Apple Biz Manager without committing to
use ABM as our MDM (we couldn't) so we told people to "move it
yourself following these detailed instructions, otherwise it can't be
migrated." Regarding personal data like health on company-managed
devices, I certainly don't share that type of info with my employer,
and make it clear to staff that it's not our responsibility to
migrate such data.
bzmrgonz wrote 23 hours 23 min ago:
Can you expand on this, specifically how it compares with jamf? It
is a direct competitor to jamf right? Essentially Apple vying to
eat their lunch right?
razakel wrote 1 day ago:
I gave up when it wanted a Dun and Bradstreet number (whoever they
are) and the website to get one didn't work.
bitwize wrote 1 day ago:
Dun & Bradstreet is a business credit agency. Having a D-U-N-S
number, which they issue, is like table stakes for being taken
seriously as a business.
yolo3000 wrote 1 day ago:
Afaik every company has a DNB number. It's a credit risk company
which sources company data from every country.
dlg wrote 1 day ago:
I have had the misfortune of having to get D&B numbers (for various
Apple things). I believe is the source for lead lists where you
start to get dozens to text and phone spam calls per day. Do not
pay hundreds of dollars for this if you can at all avoid it.
keerthiko wrote 1 day ago:
Definitely avoid unless you are distributing a consumer
application through the dominant app stores (App Store and Google
Play) ~globally, in which case you may not be able to avoid (or
avoiding will be just as much work).
Google and Apple require it for lots of mobile apps targeting
certain consumer segments because some countries (eg: Brazil,
IIRC? don't quote me on that) have chosen to use D&B as a
qualified unique identifier of business legitimacy and it
requires exposing personal information of your company's
leadership to them.
true_religion wrote 1 day ago:
AFAIK, it works with subdomains, so you can use something like
employees.example.com as your domain, and capture over that.
slyn wrote 1 day ago:
The org I work for just makes alias's - @ourbrandmdm.com for ABM
that forward to their @ourbrand.com emails.
quietsegfault wrote 1 day ago:
This was my experience switching from GMail to Appleâs mail
service. I switched back after a few days.
givinguflac wrote 1 day ago:
Genuinely curious, what were the Apple mail service issues for you?
I hate gmail and have had zero issues with my @Mac.com email in 20+
years, that Iâve noticed. Thanks
xp84 wrote 1 day ago:
Do you find that iCloud email can correctly handle both âtrue
spamâ (meaning the nonsense garbage kind) and âpromotional
emailâ effectively?
quietsegfault wrote 1 day ago:
Lots and lots of missing messages. That was the big one. Anything
from a SaaS just never arrived, like tickets, notifications, etc.
I had random IMAP authentication failures too.
cj wrote 1 day ago:
We use Apple Business Manager. Locking a domain is not a requirement
if you're just doing basic MDM, I'm pretty sure. (I also had a
negative experience with it, so we didn't use it and everyone just
uses their personal apple IDs). Is it no longer possible to skip this
step in setting up the account?
gregoriol wrote 1 day ago:
In any serious business, you don't want people to use their
personal Apple IDs: that could lock their company provided devices
for ever when they leave, you also don't want to buy them apps that
you won't be able to re-use when they leave, ...
cj wrote 1 day ago:
> that could lock their company provided devices for ever when
they leave
MDMs like JamF offer override codes to disable activation lock.
Hasnât been an issue in my experience.
geoffharcourt wrote 1 day ago:
The 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.)
SoftTalker wrote 22 hours 9 min ago:
> 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
So give all the employees an email alias they can use to create a
new Apple ID for this purpose?
AdamN wrote 1 day ago:
That's why Enterprise vendors try so hard to get startups using
their stuff. Lock-in is so strong. I can't imagine having a
working system at a 100 person company and then trying to migrate
to something else unless the current situation was truly awful.
yabutlivnWoods wrote 1 day ago:
> I think this could work if you did this at the time your company
launched
This should not be a surprise. Greenfield services have not existed
long enough to resolve edge cases that inevitably arise while
integrating existing operating models already in use.
geoffharcourt wrote 17 hours 48 min ago:
The broken part of this process (domain claim) has existed for
several years as part of ABE, it isn't new.
pottertheotter wrote 1 day ago:
> 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.
I had the same thing happen but with Microsoft. A friend and I had
started a small consulting business and were using Google
Workspace, but I needed a Microsoft account to interact with a
client. I made one with my business email. None of us knew any
better, but I couldnât connect with our clientâs Microsoft
setup because it was a personal account. So I went to set up a
business account. It was a whole fiasco and the only way I could
really fix it was create an alias and use that for Microsoft.
wil421 wrote 1 day ago:
How does a company allow personal Apple IDs?
rescbr wrote 1 day ago:
Employee needs to download Microsoft Remote Desktop (sorry,
Windows App) that is only distributed through App Store.
Employee does not trust the company having access to everything
else in their personal iCloud account - photos, mails, messages,
calendar, reminders, etc.
Employee registers a new Apple ID with company email, as it would
be only used for downloading one single app.
wil421 wrote 1 day ago:
Got it. Itâs registering with the company email first, not
their personal one.
pottertheotter wrote 1 day ago:
I think the idea is that it happens before they lock the domain
as a business. Before that, if you have an email address you can
create a personal account with it.
jamiecurle wrote 1 day ago:
yes, that's exactly how it happens.
cocoflunchy wrote 1 day ago:
I'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
geoffharcourt wrote 1 day ago:
I did not. If I had known what would happen when we tried this we
would have skipped the process entirely. Our staff (roughly 125)
was so confused and it wasted a lot of time communicating about
it, then trying to roll it back, etc.
wpm wrote 1 day ago:
Well yeah, the idea is that if you have ABM, you have an MDM you
can use to purchase licenses for them and install the apps with
the MDM.
anxman wrote 1 day ago:
This was a big pain in the ass for me to figure out. I ended
up using the free version of Mosyle and hiring someone on
Fiverr to help me figure out how to get the licenses assigned
to our managed devices.
IrishTechie wrote 1 day ago:
It can be done that way, but it is definitely not the norm.
Businesses will generally âpurchaseâ (many for â¬0) apps
in ABM that are to be used for business purposes and push those
to devices, the user can then use an Apple ID to download any
other apps they want for personal use.
ndespres wrote 1 day ago:
If theyâre using Managed Apple IDs they will have no access
at all to the app store and wonât be able to download their
own apps anymore. IT department will have to buy and assign
any apps that anyone needs, even the $0 ones that only 1
person needs.
Anon1096 wrote 1 day ago:
Yep. Truly horrid policy. Where I work our issued iPhones
suck to use without App Store access; no Bitwarden was the
killer for me personally. Everyone I checked with uses
their personal email/Apple ID instead of the MAID, and
there's a sword over your head if you ever accidently
copy/paste something from internal emails to something like
Notes which has iCloud sync (we're semi serious about
leaker). Absolute failure of an MDM setup by Apple.
wpm wrote 1 day ago:
MDM can restrict pasteboard from managed apps to
non-managed apps, as well as allowing iCloud sign-ins but
restricting which iCloud services are allowed.
It's an absolute failure of the MDM server administrator
for allowing such things, not on Apple.
lynx97 wrote 1 day ago:
If my employer did that to me, I would seriously consider
sueing them.
jazzyjackson wrote 1 day ago:
Youâve never been issued a work computer thatâs not
yours to fuck around with?
lynx97 wrote 1 day ago:
I was talking about domain capture. If you own my
apple ID just because I used the company email to
register it, I will definitely consider sueing you.
pavlov wrote 1 day ago:
Sue for what? Do you think you own the company email
address?
onion2k wrote 1 day ago:
Just on a personal note, tying your personal devices
to your work email account is a very silly thing to
do. Even if it's your company you could be locked out
of your company email account at any time (HR
grievance, SEC investigation, hostile takeover...)
Losing access to your devices and not being able to
access things like reset emails at the same time
would not be fun.
ghaff wrote 1 day ago:
I havenât. Did have issued laptops that were company
managed but I basically didnât use and, in any case,
I like many others reinstalled a clean operating system
image and did my own support.
bacheaul wrote 1 day ago:
At most decent sized companies with a cyber security
and network admin team, this is probably the fastest
way to get disconnected from the internal corporate
network with no way to reconnect.
ghaff wrote 20 hours 1 min ago:
This was a larger company and they did not care so
long as you followed policies like turning on
encryption. Companies do differ.
PxldLtd wrote 1 day ago:
I always seem to end up with local admin at the
bigger places I've been at because I'm so annoying
with onboarding and requesting access to download
development tools.
wolvoleo wrote 1 day ago:
You could do that in our place but you'd lose access
to everything due to not being in compliance.
In a small shop that might work but not in an
enterprise with ISO norms and security certifications
to meet.
FireBeyond wrote 1 day ago:
Apple 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".
IrishTechie wrote 1 day ago:
The baffling thing is that iOS+MDM has been fantastic over the
years. macOS is a completely different beast though.
jamiecurle wrote 1 day ago:
MacOS used to be excellent for a short period of time when
Fleetsmith existed. Then Apple purchased Fleetsmith around
2020 and killed the product not long after.
Fortunately around the same time, JamF ended the practice of
the mandatory Jamf JumpStart (£5K fee), which finally made
Jamf a feasible option for the company I was in at the time.
wolvoleo wrote 1 day ago:
True, I remember looking at jamf at one point and the
mandatory consulting was so annoying because we already had
it dialled in on the free trial.
In the end we just made do with intune. It's a lot less
capable for Mac but these days you can get by with it.
bzmrgonz wrote 23 hours 24 min ago:
hopefully there's no kill switch for macs on intune, if
not, the threat of wiping machines with one click is
real, just ask stryker;
(HTM) [1]: https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/stryker-a...
wolvoleo wrote 17 hours 32 min ago:
Of course there is a kill switch. This is one of the
key features of an MDM/endpoint manager. You won't be
able to sell one without it. It's also built in to
apple's management protocol (which most endpoint
management systems leverage) and in activesync.
You just have to secure it properly. Have limits to how
many one admin can wipe etc. But trust me every company
with managed IT assets has this capability. Often even
in BOYD scenarios! Stryker just failed to secure access
to it properly and to set sensible limits.
However, the feature isn't very effective in the field.
It's very unlikely for an attacker to be smart enough
to bypass the password on a stolen Mac which is needed
to connect it to WiFi, yet at the same time be dumb
enough to connect it to the unfiltered internet so it
can receive the wipe command. The overlap between these
sets of people is almost zero. We do fire a wipe at
every stolen computer but I doubt it ever actually
happens. If it ever happens it'll be a total end user
fail (like writing the password on a post-it with the
laptop)
Either you will lose it to a common thief who won't be
able to breach the login (99% of cases), or to a really
targeted adversary who has cellebrite or something
similar and won't connect it to the internet ever
again. This is still the most risky scenario because if
someone like that steals it, there's bound to be
something really valuable on it.
In practice this is something more suited to mobile
devices.
jryio wrote 2 days ago:
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.
alexchapman wrote 2 days ago:
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.
wereHamster wrote 2 days ago:
business.apple.com doesn't work in Firefox, it redirects you to [1]
Fuck you Apple.
(HTM) [1]: https://business.apple.com/abm_unsupported_browser?reason=Brow...
foresterre wrote 1 day ago:
This 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.
lowdude wrote 1 day ago:
Yes, and it works with a user agent switcher extension for Firefox,
which is always the cherry on top.
Alifatisk wrote 2 days ago:
Supported browser:
Safari (14.1 or later)
Chrome (87 or later)
Microsoft Edge (87 or later) [1] We live in fantastic times
(HTM) [1]: https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-business-manager/progr...
zb3 wrote 2 days ago:
So will Apple users be able disable these ads in maps?
lowdude wrote 1 day ago:
The 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.
cdrnsf wrote 1 day ago:
I would expect, much like the App Store, they will not. Their maps
will give you directions to navigate the enshittification curve.
jwlake wrote 2 days ago:
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.
joshstrange wrote 1 day ago:
Theyâve had a MDM solution for a number of years now, iâve not
used it because the price was higher than I could afford so I canât
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 itâs cheap. Since Iâm 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).
rjrjrjrj wrote 1 day ago:
Is 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.
p2detar wrote 1 day ago:
That'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.
jwlake wrote 1 day ago:
I 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.
Nevermark wrote 2 days ago:
Machines specâd and priced for education? Support for businesses?
I remember this!
minimaxir wrote 2 days ago:
It is very funny that a business-oriented product does not highlight
Apple's business productivity software in iWork
(Pages/Numbers/Keynote).
steve1977 wrote 1 day ago:
I thought that's now considered creator productivity software.
Brajeshwar wrote 2 days 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 â Always Free or Introductory Free for now?
martibravo wrote 2 days ago:
I 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!
creantum wrote 2 days ago:
I had to look at my calendar to be sure it wasnât 2001
monegator wrote 2 days ago:
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.
moduspol wrote 1 day ago:
I'm called by a name that is not the same as my legal name. I somehow
got an Apple Developer account during the first few years of it with
my preferred name, but it had my parents' house as the mailing
address.
I was essentially told that I could update the mailing address but
going through the steps for that process would result in the name on
my account being changed to the legal name. And so today, it still
has my parents' mailing address. Thankfully they haven't moved.
technothrasher wrote 1 day ago:
I've still got a phantom child on my Apple account because when I
tried to create a child's account many years ago for my son it
somehow messed up and used the current year instead of his birth
year. Support said too bad, no possible way to fix that. So I had
to create another account for my real son, and while he grew up and
moved out, my phantom son still lives with us for another nine
years until it is old enough that I can delete it.
moduspol wrote 1 day ago:
I hope he at least gets his own cake on his birthday.
Marsymars wrote 2 days ago:
A 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.
cyberrock wrote 5 hours 39 min ago:
Years ago when the ARM China CEO held the company hostage with the
company seal, there was much reporting that exoticized seals. But I
was just thinking, the modern systems we've built with 2FA aren't
much different!
(Product idea: seal that also prints time and TOTP?)
monegator wrote 1 day ago:
All 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
embedding-shape wrote 2 days ago:
I 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 wrote 1 day ago:
Haha ah of course. Itâs not like you ever actually owned them in
the first place.
SamuelAdams wrote 2 days ago:
So do enterprises still need Jamf [1]? For context, Jamf is one of the
most common MDM tools for organizations.
[1]
(HTM) [1]: https://www.jamf.com/
Shank wrote 1 day ago:
I would say that most SMBs don't need Jamf because they provide
overlapping features. The most important thing you want is remote
erasure of company data (for compliance purposes), app assignment,
and ensuring your devices have screen lock. This basically makes the
most important parts of MDM for Apple devices totally free.
ibejoeb wrote 1 day ago:
It's not apparent that this apple mdm will do internal distribution
or just provide for encouraging a set of installed apps already on
the app store. If it does, that would be the biggest reason for me to
jump to the free product.
Someone1234 wrote 2 days ago:
Yep. People who have never tried to add Mac support to an existing
organization do not realize how freaking expensive it is.
There are basically two cases. If you use Microsoft, you are often
already paying for Entra ID and Intune, then still adding the
Apple-side pieces for Mac support: Apple Business Manager and often
Jamf or Kandji. If you do not use Microsoft, you are buying the full
stack yourself: Okta or JumpCloud for identity, Jamf or Kandji for
device management, and Apple Business Manager for enrollment. Apple
Business Manager is free, but the rest is not, and the cost adds up
fast.
This means that, in practice, a managed Mac can easily end up costing
close to twice as much to support as a Windows device.
9dev wrote 1 day ago:
Actually Intune handles MacOS reasonably well, you donât need
Jamf; thatâs the way we went, and itâs okay-ish for the most
part. By far the annoyingest thing is getting Macs bought before we
went down the Business Manager integration route into MDM.
You think thereâs a standard way to do that? Just install company
portal? That worked in exactly 1/20 cases. Itâs an exciting new
error on every single device. Awful. Just awful.
wpm wrote 1 day ago:
The only thing you need out of any of those to correctly support
the Mac is an MDM, of which there are free ones and expensive ones
and everything in between. So long as it can deploy configuration
profiles and declarative management configs, you can spin up Munki
to be your pkg/script runner and script the rest. Installomator to
install and patch applications.
But if you also wanted identity, there are plenty of free
selfhostable SSO/ID providers out there. If you're just starting
out and not at the scale where a big Microsoft
CoPilotM365OfficeWhatever contract makes sense, you probably don't
even really have a need for a lot of this stuff. A minimum contract
for Jamf Pro is like $5k a year or something. That's two well
kitted developer MacBook Pros per year in license costs.
xbryanx wrote 1 day ago:
Totally agree on the hidden costs. We've seen some great value in
going with Mosyle for this. Lots cheaper, and it "just works."
(HTM) [1]: https://mosyle.com/
awakeasleep wrote 2 days ago:
Big 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 wrote 2 days ago:
Dunno 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 wrote 2 days ago:
A 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 wrote 1 day ago:
By business relationship I meant B2B. They're excellent.
gregoriol wrote 1 day ago:
By excellent, you mean excellent at not being able to talk to
someone about your real world problem and need to rely on
your linkedin contacts to find someone to talk to?
bigyabai wrote 1 day ago:
Relative to what? The top comment in this thread is a
3-person chain explaining how their B2B accounts were locked
with no communication or recourse.
awakeasleep wrote 1 day ago:
I 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.
drcongo wrote 1 day ago:
I've decided you're probably right, I retract my earlier
comments.
AlotOfReading wrote 2 days ago:
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.
moondance wrote 1 day ago:
Live gas prices on GMaps is the only feature yet to make it over to
Apple Maps, as far as I can tell. Once Apple integrates that one, my
phone will finally be free of Google services.
Barbing wrote 2 days ago:
Such a huge bummer.
Hey, Big Ad Tech, come try enshitify my Rand McNally.
giobox wrote 2 days ago:
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?
> [1] >
(HTM) [1]: https://business.apple.com/preview
(HTM) [2]: https://www.apple.com/business/essentials/
jacobgkau wrote 2 days ago:
One 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.
workfromspace wrote 2 days ago:
Maybe also 200 countries included, instead of just the USA?
martibravo wrote 2 days ago:
Email, 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
throwaw12 wrote 2 days ago:
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.
martibravo wrote 2 days ago:
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.
x0x0 wrote 1 day ago:
Apple would be near the top of my list of companies incapable of
building software that will do this. I cannot believe anyone who has
tried Mail.app would be interested in using that for their business.
I tried it for 3-ish months and had immense trouble reliably
threading, seeing responses, with search, etc.
There's 0 way they have competent, reliable, working group
calendaring.
aucisson_masque wrote 1 day ago:
I have had plenty of issues with outlook, I had to force close it
at least once per day. Macos mail app was very good for my
business need, it was a small one but had to deal with hundreds of
mails everyday.
Plus you don't get that proprietary format pst when you backup the
mails.
givinguflac wrote 1 day ago:
Are you talking Mac or iOS? I have never had an issue on iPhoneâs
mail app, though my desktop is Linux so I donât know? Hence the
question. Iâve never experienced any of that. Thanks
BeetleB wrote 1 day ago:
I recently switched from a Microsoft heavy company to an Apple heavy
company.
Since the early 2000's, I've been bad mouthing Outlook, for a whole
lot of reasons.
Let's just say: I miss Outlook. And it's still terrible.
monster_truck wrote 1 day ago:
The companies I know of that would be most likely to do this would
never buy these because of the integrated webcams, and no "you can
disconnect them easily" is not acceptable, as a matter of policy.
john_strinlai wrote 1 day ago:
>I'd be scared if I was certain Redmond corporation who makes their
money on 365 and Intune.
scared of what? microsoft doesnt need to care about new businesses
with under 50 employees at all. they have governments, banks,
universities, colleges, and large non-tech enterprises completely
locked down. small business with 10-50 devices are a drop in the
ocean.
>New businesses under 50 employees are going to eat this up like
there's no tomorrow.
i seriously doubt people outside of the tech or design spheres (i.e.
most people) are going to go with apple for their businesses. when
you are starting a business, you dont want to also have to teach all
of your employees (and possibly yourself) how to use a new operating
system.
you are going to look up "local IT company" or "local MSP", ask them
to set you up, and they will integrate you into their existing
microsoft ecosystem and send over some thinkpads, while you focus on
your business.
TheGamerUncle wrote 1 day ago:
It really depends on the context and the context within the
context.
I used to manage a medium sized IT firm in Colombia on a hybrid
manner.
One of our biggest clients had a sort of high end boutique set of
businesses and two bigger businesses that interacted quite more
with the regular public.
For the high end boutiques he asked us ONLY and ONLY to use mac's
both because down there they are synonym of "prestige and class"
and because the (very attractive) women that he hired for most
roles were only familiar, or preferred mac's and were consumer's
exclusively of apple's walled garden.
We had a bunch of customers like that, the real issue is that if
this were on place I would have made it an option for my clients,
eventually some things like security or software may move a
significant number of users there, specially after the new mac
mini, the neo and the ma air become budget options compared to a
lot of what microsoft is offering in latam and some parts of
Europe.
p_ing wrote 1 day ago:
This ignores that Apple is unable to manufacture enough computers per
year to be disruptive.
25m Macs in calendar year 2025. Lenovo manufactured 19m PCs in Q4
2025.
Apple simply lacks volume.
odiroot wrote 1 day ago:
So Lenovo wins in both quantity and quality (at least for T/X
series), let alone configurability.
tengbretson wrote 1 day ago:
I imagine the company that currently ships 250m iPhones a year can
figure that part out.
FinnKuhn wrote 1 day ago:
Especially due to Apple having a lot less SKUs (compared to
Lenovo) and having a lot more control over important parts such
as CPUs.
doctorpangloss wrote 1 day ago:
okay dude, how many phones did it manufacture in Q4 2025?
87m [1] do you think lenovo would rather manufacture 19m PCs or 87m
phones? i don't know, you raise an interesting point that is wrong.
(HTM) [1]: https://www.semiconductor-today.com/news_items/2026/mar/te...
p_ing wrote 1 day ago:
It looks like you have this discussion confused. This is about
Macs, not phones.
F7F7F7 wrote 1 day ago:
Sure, Apple's dominance in sourcing, manufacturing and all
other aspects of logistics surely has no place in this
conversation. '
The NEO is a masterclass in how integrated these systems
actually are.
bombcar wrote 1 day ago:
The Neo is a phone with a big screen.
Kirby64 wrote 1 day ago:
Does it matter if the main difference is the OS?
Chromebooks are way worse spec wise, and theyâre still
âphones with big screensâ and a different OS. If
someone made a windows laptop that was actually good
without compromises in an ARM SoC, Iâm sure itâd sell
well too. The Qualcomm ones seem to have too many
compromises today with the OS/driver layer unfortunately.
bombcar wrote 1 day ago:
That last part is the stumbling block for sure - the
Microsoft Surface Laptops are nice machines but damn if
the driver thing doesn't continually piss me off. [1] but
at $900, and the Neo literally just being a Mac and doing
everything any other Mac does (except some hardware
related limitations like driving a 6k monitor, but doing
4k is "enough for most") means you save $300 and don't
run into annoyances like "can't install my printer
driver".
(HTM) [1]: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/...
dijit wrote 1 day ago:
Weird, never had an issue getting my hands on an Apple laptop of
any desired configuration, even odd keyboard layouts for the region
(UK and Sweden).
Had plenty of issues getting specific specification Thinkpads:
because they are largely sold through resellers and they donât
stock all SKUs I suppose.
p_ing wrote 1 day ago:
No where did I say you canât get a hold of one, I said they
donât have the volume. Theyâre behind Lenovo, HP, and Dell.
The x86 market is massive and dwarfs Appleâs Mac manufacturing.
mlsu wrote 1 day ago:
Isn't this an artifact of the demand side and not the supply
side?
Yes, apple shipped fewer laptops than dell in 2025. That's
because Apple laptops started at $1100 in 2025.
They won't have a problem securing the chips for Mac Neo's,
they're the same SOC as the iPhone. What, Apple is going to
have an issue manufacturing a few million motherboards?
dijit wrote 1 day ago:
I donât buy this reasoning until there is evidence of orders
going unfulfilled.
I could make 20M units of something and leave my resellers as
bagholders who then have to sell years old hardware at a
discount- and by the internal consistency of your logic: I
would have the volumes.
dangus wrote 1 day ago:
Serviceable != upgradable or long-lasting.
So many people are going to get burned by the hypnotism of these
Neos. They're going to be gateways into being traded in within 2-3
years to get something with more RAM and storage when their owners
find out how much they struggle with basic tasks due to insufficient
RAM and storage.
If you actually go on Best Buy or Micro Center websites and look at
street prices you'll realize that the Neo isn't actually that
disruptive.
The trackpad is mid. I've tried it. It's mid enough that basically
any PC can compete with the trackpad experience. There are multiple
$500-800 PCs that are easy recommendations as alternatives, all with
16GB of RAM, all with modular storage.
The battery in the Neo is so small that even with the extremely
efficient iPhone processor inside, basic Windows laptops can beat the
Neo in battery life. Grab a Yoga 7 and you've got double the RAM,
2-in-1 convertible touch screen, and better battery life. Oh yeah,
and you get a better OLED panel, too.
kube-system wrote 1 day ago:
My last Windows laptop was a 2-in-1 Yoga. It was the reason I
switched to Macs.
Sure, the specs were good... on paper. But all of the little
firmware bugs really destroyed the experience. Mine had both
throttling and display output issues, which really suck for a
development machine. Also Windows kind of sucks in general these
days -- and when I installed Linux on the thing, then I got the
classic lackluster power management issue where it would slowly
discharge in my backpack. So there goes the battery life
advantages.
Apple benefits from great vertical integration so their damn
firmware usually works, and if there are issues, they tend to fix
them, where as Lenovo and most PC integrators seem to be happy just
abandoning products from last quarter and releasing fifteen new
models instead. And it's posix and doesn't put ads in my start
menu, right out of the box.
dangus wrote 14 hours 56 min ago:
Throttling issues?
Did you know the MacBook Neo has no fan? It can go 2x faster FPS
in games if itâs cooled better: [1] Even a simple quiet and
mostly-off fan would have been a $5 addition to the system that
would have boosted performance by ~10%. But Apple wanted to make
an iPad computer.
Apple advertises their subscription services directly in the
system settings when you buy the system (they give you a trial
that is shown as a system settings notification and when you
refer it they do the thing where you have to cancel on the last
day or else forfeit the remaining trial term before itâs over;
accidental subscription dark pattern where you canât turn off
auto-renew without forfeiting remaining time) and also advertises
apple subs via toast notifications.
As far as device firmware, I dunno, I felt like my Intel MacBook
Pro 16â had pretty shit firmware that ended up abandoned
because Apple went straight to M1 and the whole T2 thing where
they tried to customize Intelâs stack never really worked all
that well. Apple almost certainly half-assed that machine knowing
their next platform was on the way.
Like the whole âinstant open lid wake from sleepâ that was
great in the past but turned into crazy lag on those late Intel
machines.
Oh yeah and I just got my last settlement check for my 2016
butterfly keyboard. That machine was a lovely ownership
experience.
So this idea that only PC laptops have firmware issues and bad
long term supportâ¦idk man, I just donât fully buy that. Iâm
sure Apple is mostly better but Iâve had enough bad experiences
that I donât consider them to be anything wildly special.
(HTM) [1]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=lswbpVtAhrc
kube-system wrote 13 hours 22 min ago:
It didnât have âthrottling issuesâ as in âit implements
throttlingâ but as in âthe throttling was broken and it
throttled when it wasnât even hotâ
> I just got my last settlement check for my 2016 butterfly
keyboard
Thatâs nice, I didnât get anything
dangus wrote 2 hours 6 min ago:
Tomato, tomato. I would consider removing a basic feature
like a small and quiet fan as âthrottling when it wasnât
even hot.â
Sorry in advance to continue ranting about this, but the
consumer-hostile bit is itâs used as a price segmentation
strategy. Consumers donât care if their laptop has a modest
quiet cooling fan, but Apple acts like customers hate them.
The cooling fan inside the Nintendo Switch has alienated zero
potential customers, is basically inaudible, and itâs still
an extremely portable device.
The only reason the MacBook Air M5 is slower than the MacBook
Pro M5 is the lack of cooling. Itâs done on purpose. Itâs
not âsave costs and offer a cheaper product,â itâs
âpurposefully remove a âfreeâ benefit to push you up
the product lineup.â
Similarly, it would have cost Apple almost nothing to bump
the Neo to 12GB of memory but theyâre going to hold back
that upgrade so that first gen buyers buy their next system
sooner.
I think I got the settlement email because I took my system
in to Apple to get the keyboard fixed and the lawyers for the
class action had my contact info as a result.
Schiendelman wrote 1 day ago:
I think you might be very surprised by what you can do with eight
gigs of RAM on Apple Silicon. Apple does hardware compression into
memory - it performs as well as a 16 GB machine did with an Intel
chip.
dangus wrote 1 day ago:
I don't know where this myth has come from that macOS magically
uses less RAM even though you are using the same applications as
everyone else.
The Just Josh Tech review of the MacBook Neo demonstrated that
the Neo cannot do a fractional resolution playback of a very
simple Adobe Premiere project. We are not even talking about
doing any editing work, simply playing back the project in the
timeline.
The ~$500 Acer loaded with 16GB of RAM performed much better on
that workflow.
I think it's worth pointing out that the base RAM on a MacBook
Air was 8GB six years ago.
The Neo is a low end machine that trades RAM, storage, keyboard
backlight, I/O and battery capacity for fit and finish and
aesthetics.
It is a machine that will introduce many people to the Mac, and
it will be very successful, but I also think it is a machine that
for many people will not last them a very long time. And who
knows, that might have the same negative impact that cheap
Windows PCs have had for Microsoft in the long run, which was the
whole reason they started their premium Surface brand.
kube-system wrote 1 day ago:
> I don't know where this myth has come from that macOS
magically uses less RAM even though you are using the same
applications as everyone else.
Well, you're certainly not running the same code on both
systems. Some applications absolutely use less RAM on MacOS...
some use less on Windows.
Some of this is due to the various builds of the software
itself, some of it is due to architectural differences in
memory management, CPU instructions, differing memory access
capabilities, etc.
8GB is tight for power users, definitely. But it is certainly
very usable for on a Mac for the average person.
dangus wrote 1 hour 37 min ago:
I agree that itâs usable, but I think itâs still worth
pointing out that it was the base configuration of the M1 Air
almost 6 full years ago.
It feels to me a lot like past cut down systems such as the
eMac or that horrendous 21â 1080p Intel iMac that sort of
make sense by being cheap but donât make as much sense in
wider context of available choices.
Of course, I think the Neo will be a huge success and is a
good product overall, but a product where an informed buyer
can do better.
It is potentially a purchase decision that really wonât
last as long as a cheap Acer with 16GB of memory, even though
the Neo is built better.
gtvwill wrote 1 day ago:
8gb on a apple is not enough and its not surprising at all.
Source: dealing with dozens of Mac devices with 8gb memory that
clients had which all can't handle their workloads. I've switched
whole companies from Mac back to pcs. And I've watched companies
try switch to Apple and go from reasonably problem free
operations to a nightmare of broken systems. Want to use apples
data transfer to migrate from windows to Mac? Good luck it just
plain doesn't work.
Device management on macs is an absolute nightmare along with the
hell hole that is apple ID and the app store. Not to mention
their absolutely abysmal performance with rmm. You can literally
configure a machines permissions to allow remote access apps to
work then a week later they just break the software and your
access to manage the device is broken too.
Apple products are absolutely terrible for business from phones
to laptops to their entire office suite.
dointheatl wrote 1 day ago:
I don't think you get it, OC tried the trackpad in a MicroCenter.
It's game over.
givinguflac wrote 1 day ago:
Thank you, point well made!
carlosjobim wrote 1 day ago:
Millions and millions of normal people have used 8GB M-series
Macbooks for the past 5 years, and nobody has those problems you
describe. In fact, everybody is happy to have machines which don't
have the usual problems that PCs have.
Computing tasks related to real world scenarios don't need giant
RAM repositories, as evident in that people could do these tasks
just fine when 32 megabytes of RAM was enough.
dangus wrote 1 day ago:
So what you're saying is that the same 8GB of RAM that MacBook
Air M1 had 6 years ago is a good idea for a brand new laptop?
Like I said, the MacBook Neo is squarely a low-end device. Make
excuses all you want, it trades RAM, storage, keyboard backlight,
and battery size for a nice chassis and portability.
carlosjobim wrote 1 day ago:
Yes, it's an excellent idea. For normal people a computer is a
tool to get things done, and any 8GB Apple Silicon machine will
serve them very well.
Think about it this way: If you loose 5 days of productivity
then you have lost $500. A Windows or Linux machine is
guaranteed to cause many more days than that of productivity
loss per year.
And with "normal people" I mean everybody who is not a
developer or hacker, including millions and millions of people
who work professionally with computers.
The RAM doesn't matter as much as people here insist. What do I
care that my computer has half the RAM, when it completes any
and every task blazingly fast and never freezes up or crashes?
RAM turns into an abstract.
Look at it this way: You're arguing that a diesel truck is
always better than a motorcycle because it has more
horsepowers. Okay, but the motorcycle gets me where I want
twice as fast and is more comfortable, and doesn't break down
all the time. That's what I care about.
dangus wrote 15 hours 20 min ago:
I donât understand why thereâs a strange assumption that
Windows or Linux users are just burning productivity all the
time and macOS users are the only ones where âeverything
just works.â Heck leave Linux out of it for all I care:
Windows isnât some kind of immature OS that that requires
tons of fiddling. Itâs basically the same thing as macOS
when it comes down to non-technical users. They open up the
windows store or Mac app
Store click a button and get their apps and theyâre on
their way.
Itâs just a biased take that is 100% subjective.
I think this narrative comes from the Windows XP user
experience from 30 years ago that no longer exists.
Yeah, the RAM fucking matters because Google Chrome has 90%
browser marketshare, because Spotify is the market leader,
not Apple Music, because more people use Microsoft Outlook
than Apple Mail, more people use Slack thanâ¦well, Apple
doesnât have a workplace chat program. These are big
memory-sucking apps.
8GB of RAM is great for Apple native optimized apps but
regular users run many more things than that.
carlosjobim wrote 6 hours 20 min ago:
Linux is too complicated for a normal person to use
productively, and it doesn't have the productivity software
needed by non-hackers.
Windows: Yes, the user experience is that bad. My
observations of Windows users is that it's hard for them to
get things done effectively because of the faults of the
system. Talking about non-hacker people, who might be very
proficient in photo editing or spreadsheets or word
processing.
Just booting a Windows machine is a chore. These have the
same specs or better specs than Macs, but how come you can
instantly use a Mac by opening the lid, and Windows PCs
take their merry minutes to be ready?
I won't even mention malware and such.
For a normal, non-technical person, there isn't any problem
in using stock Mac Mail, Safari, and native productivity
tools. And honestly, those memory hogs you mention aren't a
problem either on Apple silicon. It's still faster to use
than on a PC with double the RAM.
dangus wrote 1 hour 55 min ago:
Can you go into more specific details about these
observations you made? Which people were they?
Do you have any benchmarks that show this âfaster than
a PC with double the RAMâ claim?
Because when I saw real world tests on the Neo versus the
Acer Aspire AI 14, the Acer machine was faster at video
playback in Adobe Premiere (as an example) due to the
lack of memory pressure.
I can tell you at work we have a mixed environment and
the Windows users and Mac users donât seem to have any
difference in difficulty doing things like showing their
work in presentations. Our company metrics show zero
difference in employee productivity based on what
operating system they use (Iâm a manager and can see
these things).
sleepybrett wrote 1 day ago:
My phone costs twice as much and I replace it every 2-3 years.
You know what people who outgrow their applebooks are going to do?
Buy a macbook air or pro. They aren't going to buy a windows
machine. Some might buy a linux machine.
Petersipoi wrote 1 day ago:
$500 for 2-3 years is great. And it will last much longer than
that in reality.
It's pretty plain to see that the Neo eats any competitors lunch at
that price point. It isn't close.
dangus wrote 1 day ago:
The computer is $600. Itâs only $500 on the education store.
Many Apple customers will not have access. Anyone who walks into
a physical Apple Store will have to prove their eduction status.
I am not sure why itâs eating competitors lunch when many very
well-regarded competitors are in the price range available at
stores.
Whatâs better about a Neo than a Yoga 7? Same price range. [1]
This is $40 more than the Neoâs top model and you get double
the RAM and an OLED convertible touch screen.
(HTM) [1]: https://www.bestbuy.com/product/lenovo-yoga-7-2-in-1-cop...
robotresearcher wrote 1 day ago:
> Whatâs better about a Neo than a Yoga 7?
If you already have an iPhone, there are lovely little
integration things that sound like small beans but are really
valuable over time, eg.:
- copy-paste text between devices
- get verification codes from text messages to auto-fill in
Safari on Mac
I don't know if Yoga 7 is good in this regard, but when you
open the lid on a Macbook, it's awake and interactive before
you've finished swinging it open. And battery life is
outstanding. I'd miss things like that.
dangus wrote 1 day ago:
So the Apple advantage is, essentially, the evasion of
antitrust rules. Nice. In any event, I use KDE Connect to
send my clipboard around between iOS, Windows, Android, and
Linux.
The whole "instant on when you open the lid" thing is not
impressive in 2026. Even with Linux my laptop is instant-on
from sleep in a very similar fashion.
And, again, here I am as a broken record repeating this since
nobody is listening because they've been indoctrinated by
Apple marketing:
The MacBook Neo does not have as good battery life as the
more expensive models! In comparison testing with other
similar PC laptops the battery life is very middle of the
road!
philistine wrote 1 day ago:
Aside from the pitiful screen resolution for a 14-inch screen
and the fact that the Lenovo has a fan, they are indeed
similar.
But I don't know why you cannot see it as terrible for the PC
makers that Apple finally has entered the sub-1000$ market.
Since Apple has existed they've been in the high-end of the
market, and now they're not. The Lenovo I'm sure is fine, but
what it doesn't have is clarity of purpose. The Neo is a laptop
and nothing else. Which leads me to question whether that very
complicated Lenovo hinge will survive the 7 years my Mac
laptops give me.
dangus wrote 1 day ago:
160 ppi is not pitiful, it's the same as a 27" 4K monitor.
Is "clarity of purpose" ghost of Steve Jobs speak for
refusing features to customers?
Why is it so hard to conceive of a student wanting to write
hand-written notes on a 2-in-1 laptop? Apple would rather
sell you a second device.
Why are we assuming the hinge on 2-in-1 laptops can't
survive? These are not new products. These are well-regarded,
highly reviewed products from the #1 PC manufacturer in the
world (Apple is #4).
rconti wrote 1 day ago:
They need to _commit_ to this, and execute, though. This feels very
much like yet another half-hearted Apple initiative.
Henchman21 wrote 1 day ago:
Everything is half-hearted from Apple since Steve died. He was the
beating heart. Who has stepped into that role? Like for real?
Anyone? Iâm just not seeing it
rogerrogerr wrote 1 day ago:
Does it matter? Apple's revenue/profit was $108B/$25B in 2011. It
was $416B/$112B in 2025. They're clearly doing something right.
Henchman21 wrote 22 hours 38 min ago:
Only looking at these numbers and not the general sentiment
around the company, I'd say yes, it matters. Myopically
focusing on profits and assuming profit = good is, well, its
super common but also pretty nutty.
At this point to take part in modern life a smart phone is
required. Having captured a market for an essential "luxury
good" doesn't mean they're doing something right. It just means
we have no other choices.
theonemind wrote 1 day ago:
I think the average idiot can take a really strong business and
weaken the bones for some quarters or years of extra profit,
possibly insane profit, before lack of focus on what really
made the company strong starts to erode the fundamentals. I
think weâre seeing that with Apple personally. Itâs just
colossal though so thereâs a lot of squeezing and a lot of
profit before it really catches up. And they donât even
disappear. They just become lumbering monsters like Microsoft,
IBM, and HP that people donât use because they want to. HP
was legitimately a great company.
rogerrogerr wrote 1 day ago:
But this isnât some quarters or years, itâs been
_fifteen_ years. I think weâve seen enough genuine
innovation (Apple silicon, to name the major one) that itâs
clear Apple isnât shutting down the innovation pipeline to
squeeze margin out of revenue.
Henchman21 wrote 22 hours 35 min ago:
Apple Silicon started under Steve didn't it? He died in
2011, first A4 was out in 2010 IIRC? That implies to me
that Steve had a hand in it -- because he reputedly had a
hand in everything.
But that's it, thats the innovation. The singular one since
he died. I think my point stands tbh: everything is
half-hearted since Steve died.
bombcar wrote 1 day ago:
$599 per device? Redmond will make more profit the first year selling
a 365 subscription than Apple does on the Neo.
The real competition is going to come from companies using the $599
Neo + Google Workgroups or whatever they're calling it - now
Microsoft is cut out entirely.
nolok wrote 1 day ago:
> The real competition is going to come from companies using the
$599 Neo + Google Workgroups or whatever they're calling it - now
Microsoft is cut out entirely.
The companies doing that are cut in two groups. The one that don't
fully plan it and they need to do with complex excel or whatever
files here and there and they're still in microsoft's grasp, or
those that fully do and move to disposable chromebook.
999900000999 wrote 2 days 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.
dangus wrote 1 day ago:
I keep shouting from the rooftops the fact that the Neo is really
not that disruptive or even necessarily that good of a deal.
Like, have any of you actually looked at street prices at Micro
Center or Best Buy recently? In the price range of the higher model
Neo you can get a Yoga 7 with an OLED convertible touch screen, 1TB
storage, 16GB of RAM, along with a processor with better multicore
and iGPU performance (Ryzen 7 AI 350) in a 2-in-1 convertible
package that has better battery life doing office tasks.
Yes, the Neo is a cheap machine, with a lot of the exact same cheap
machine compromises that are all over the $500-800 laptop market.
Not really the best CPU, extremely cut-down battery, missing
features, etc.
It even loses keyboard backlighting which is such a standard
feature that it might be the only laptop on sale without it.
Losing the haptic trackpad means that the Acer you can buy at Micro
Center for $530 with double the RAM and way better I/O (USB4, USB-A
3.0, microSD, and HDMI) has a pretty similar quality of trackpad
experience. Yes, I tried both in store, the MacBook Neo's trackpad
is really at the same level of all the PC competition.
MacBook Pro/Air Trackpad: 10/10
Best PC haptic trackpads available: 8/10
MacBook Neo trackpad: 7/10
Typical PC mechanical trackpads: 6 or 7/10
Hell, the older generation HP EliteBook 840 G10 that Micro Center
sells as a business laptop makes a bunch more sense in a lot of
ways. It's also an all-aluminum build thin and light system, comes
with more RAM, which is upgradable, has a fingerprint reader,
backlit keyboard, etc.
qmr wrote 1 day ago:
... the Yoga doesn't run MacOS though.
dangus wrote 15 hours 5 min ago:
Okay? Windows and macOS are basically the same.
Only biased fanboy people say otherwise.
drnick1 wrote 1 day ago:
> Hell, the older generation HP EliteBook 840 G10 that Micro
Center sells as a business laptop makes a bunch more sense in a
lot of ways.
And the best thing is that you can format the drive, install
Linux, and be completely free of Microsoft and Apple.
999900000999 wrote 1 day ago:
And it comes with Windows.
Back in the normal world people don't use Linux. If you have the
funds you can get an M4 Air with 16GB for 800$.
I still have a 8GB M1 air, it's fine for filling out paper work
and watching YouTube, which is the extent of what most people do
selectively wrote 1 day ago:
The trackpad on the Neo is at the level of a Surface trackpad,
which is to say it is worlds better than the typical budget junk
you can pick up from Acer.
dangus wrote 1 day ago:
I disagree strongly. Again, I tried it in store at the exact
same time as trying other laptops.
Yes, it's a little bit better than the alternatives, but,
critically, not by much. Not by enough to sway a purchase
decision.
It's not better than diving board mechanical trackpads by
enough of a margin for most consumers to notice.
Also, macOS over-relies on trackpad gestures. You don't really
need them anywhere near as much in Windows or Linux. This is
Apple's intention: to try and sell more proprietary trackpads,
because they know if their OS was optimized for normal mice
consumers would just buy the cheap $20 mice that are better
than their $100+ accessories.
The PC industry barely has to adapt to compete with the Neo. I
think we'll start seeing that in late 2026 and 2027 when
competitors arrive on Apple's doorstep.
givinguflac wrote 1 day ago:
I will be absolutely shocked if any current pc company can
even approach the neos build quality/performance/price combo.
See you next year, happy to wait .
dangus wrote 1 hour 48 min ago:
I think weâll actually see some serious responses from PC
manufacturers. They basically have to.
They really arenât that far off as it is. Iâve brought
up a number of similarly priced models in my other comments
on this thread.
Even on the premium end, the surface laptop really isnât
that far off on pricing. It was priced and specced to
essentially match the Air. I think thereâs no reason a
cut down model couldnât match the Neo.
I think the most important thing is for Microsoft to crack
down more on OEMsâ use of third party junkware like
McAfee. They need to just disallow it as a hard policy.
Hopefully the Neo is also a wake up call to Microsoft.
I also think that an x86 processor that performs 20-40%
slower really isnât a big deal in the context of the
Neoâs competitors. They mostly need to match the pricing
and build quality. Nobody cares that the hybrid Toyota
Corolla is slower than the hybrid Honda Civic when they go
buy the car. They care that it has the attributes theyâre
looking for (packaging, reliability, quality, price). And I
think the Neoâs great chip is hampered by RAM anyway. The
SoC package was designed for a mobile system that only has
partial multitasking.
selectively wrote 1 day ago:
One of the things is an Acer. The other is a Mac. That sways
purchase decisoons - one is a nice thing, the other one is a
low end PC.
I have used countless modern PC devices, including some from
Acer. Few PCs have a trackpad of the level of the Neo and
none from Acer.
Your logic with "Apple's intentions" reveals a person who is
incapable of decent analysis; macOS relies on gestures a lot
because the vast majority of macOS devices are laptops. The
desktop market is an after thought because the people keep
buying laptops. That's it. There's no conspiracy, just a
focus on the devices that the users choose to buy.
The PC industry has almost no shot of competing with the Neo.
You have to spend much more than $1000 to get a nice object
that looks and feels nice. Right now, the PC industry is
selling Old Navy products when Hermès is the same price.
That is a real problem.
Microsoft is going to be fine. Companies that rely on selling
low end devices to consumers are going to suffer.
dangus wrote 1 day ago:
My point is that Apple is in many ways joining Acer, not
bringing their luxury product down to the masses.
Yes, in many ways theyâre bringing a very polished
product to the space. But in many other ways, look closely
and youâll see the cut corners.
Again, Iâve felt the Neo in person. The chassis feels
nice, sure. Itâs not built to the same level as Appleâs
other products, though.
The bottom plate is not CNCed, itâs a stamped aluminum
plate. That means there is variation in the gap along the
bottom of the laptop between the man case and the bottom
plate that doesnât exist on the Air or Pro.
Again, the trackpad is good but is worse than many haptic
trackpads offered by PC manufacturers like Lenovo.
Again, if you think the PC industry has no chance of
competing, go to your retailer website and look at street
prices. Look at laptop reviews from places like Just Josh
Tech on YouTube. PC manufacturers arenât making trash.
Acer is actually a great example of a really solid PC. I
felt the $530 model Micro Center is selling and it seemed
to do the job: thin and light enough, felt sturdy, similar
trackpad to the Neo, better specs and I/O. Iâd say I only
wanted the display to be a little better, though on the
plus side it was bigger than the Neoâs cramped 13â.
This isnât 2005. There is a misguided assumption to
assume that PCs are still trash like they were 10 years
ago. They just arenât.
One little random bit to point out: there are 100 million
Mac users globally as of 2024. There are more than 900
million PC gamers globally.
So, if Iâm a high school student or college student who
has money for one computer and I am a member of that group
of 900 million PC gamers, I might just go get a last gen
Lenovo LOQ with the RTX 4050 or something similar in the
current gen from someone like MSI with an RTX 5050.
I would deal with a chunkier plastickier laptop but it
would get similar battery life to the Neo for office tasks
and I could actually play games. 16GB RAM. Modular storage.
Price is around $700.
And Iâll be honest, that trackpad ainât gonna be much
worse than the Neo. And Iâll get to keep my backlit
keyboard and have some I/O.
givinguflac wrote 1 day ago:
>Look at laptop reviews from places like Just Josh Tech
on YouTube
I stopped reading here.
dangus wrote 15 hours 19 min ago:
Okay? So you donât look at reviews or something?
Whatâs the problem that made you stop reading?
selectively wrote 1 day ago:
You are deeply confused (you do not understand public
perception/you do not understand how choosing a ''good
pc'' is hard for most people/you don't grasp that a
luxury brand versus Acer for the same price is a no
brainer for most people, regardless of I/O or whatever)
and - frankly - you are not worth discussing anything
with. Have a good rest of your day.
RussianCow wrote 1 day 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...
dhosek wrote 1 day ago:
Intel or Apple Silicon? The latter manages memory much better.
RussianCow wrote 1 day ago:
Intel. That's good to know! Do you know why this is? Presumably
because of the shared memory pool across CPU/GPU, or are there
other factors?
alcidesfonseca wrote 1 day ago:
The next neo might have the SSDs of the current pros, making
swapping less problematic.
martibravo wrote 2 days ago:
Agreed. 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 wrote 2 days ago:
Less 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.
selectively wrote 2 days ago:
Microsoft is a giant enterprise software company that also publishes
Candy Crush and Call of Duty.
Intune and Windows are 'nice to have' but are not the
business-business. The business is 365 (which runs on Macs and is
worlds better than Apple's office suite + Apple's hosted email is god
awful) and Azure.
downrightmike wrote 1 day ago:
No, it isn't 365, it is 365 + (forced ai)
selfmodruntime wrote 1 day ago:
No way. Intune and Entra are the vendor-lock in technologies that
cement a business via m365 for the long haul.
codeulike wrote 1 day ago:
Exactly. So many people on hn have no idea how diversified
Microsoft is, and have no inkling of what the enterprise market is
like
Petersipoi wrote 1 day ago:
On the contrary, nobody here is suggesting Microsoft isn't really
diverse. They're suggesting that Apple is going to start to eat
into their SMB market.
Nobody at Microsoft is saying, "we don't care if Apple chips away
at SMB because we have Call of Duty"
selectively wrote 1 day ago:
Microsoft offers Office for Mac. It's a thing they do. It's the
full fledged Office suite. They see a Mac user the same way
they see a Windows user - a source of revenue.
Foivos wrote 1 day ago:
Office for Mac is increasingly getting feature parity with
the windows version, but it is not fully there yet.
For example, if you want to use "data model" in Excel, it is
only available in the windows version.
wolvoleo wrote 1 day ago:
Yeah and ms access is completely missing. It lacks the full
version of onenote too.
The one thing that shines is Mac outlook where on windows
you'll soon have to put up with that joke of a web app.
grumpyprole wrote 1 day ago:
Not always. There's no Minecraft for Mac, they even
prohibited Macs running the iPad version. It's essentially
been ported to Apples APIs but purposely withheld from macOS.
selectively wrote 1 day ago:
I'm talking about enterprise software, not games. Minecraft
exists for Mac, grab the Java version.
genthree wrote 1 day ago:
Anyone on Bedrock Minecraft is probably there for the
cross-platform multiplayer. The Java version doesn't
substitute for that. (MS made Bedrock and Java
incompatible so they can rent-seek on closed mod and
server-hosting "marketplaces"; can't let people share
things and have fun without paying a middleman after all,
think of the wasted "productivity"!)
genthree wrote 2 days ago:
Apple's office suite is my favorite I've ever used, and it's not
close.
After that, old copies of MSOffice.
Next-best would be a hodgepodge of the lighter options on Linux and
such. Gnumeric, Abiword, that sort of thing. Not great, but at
least they're light on resources and easy to use.
Distantly after that, LibreOffice.
Then, modern MSOffice in last place.
The only reason I'd count any of them as "worse" than modern
MSOffice is that ~perfect office compatibility and a bulletproof
excuse when things go wrong ("I'm also using MSOffice, don't know
why your document isn't working") is non-negotiable in any business
context.
[EDIT] Oh I forgot about Google. That's actually the true
last-place. Modern MSOffice isn't worse than that. Christ the
performance is awful.
johnwalkr wrote 22 hours 41 min ago:
Personally, I like Apple's iWork. Keynote is slightly less fiddly
than Powerpoint. I like that in Numbers you can have multiple
movable tables on one screen without constraining column widths
etc to each other. I also like that Pages is simpler than word
with much more manageable styles, especially when copy and
pasting from multiple other documents. But lots of people don't
have Macs or like iWork, and in most businesses you eventually
need MS Office to work with outside parties so for work the
choice is really iWork plus MS Office vs MS Office.
MS Office collaboration features work well these days but when
you are using Office 365 for work, it's almost inevitable that
different files get saved locally, on MS teams, Sharepoint, and
OneDrive. It's a version control nightmare.
I really like google's suite for work because it nudges everyone
towards using only one location for all files, without a other
places to save a copy. And it's good enough with Office files
that you might only need a few roles to also need MS Office.
slashdave wrote 1 day ago:
You can drag a pdf into Keynote, and get a vector quality image.
This feature is great for science when a plot is made elsewhere
(R or matplotlib). Or you can even drag in an SVG, even from
something you find in a browser. Drag, drop.
Why in heaven's name is it nearly impossible to do the same with
Powerpoint is a mystery. You still have to paste a bit image.
jimmoores wrote 1 day ago:
Frankly, if you think that, you're not exactly a power user of
office suites. Apple apps are a complete joke in the
professional world.
WarcrimeActual wrote 1 day ago:
>and it's not close.
This line right he is where I will always stop reading any reply,
and block any YouTube channel that uses it in a title. Mind
numbingly overused. It's literally verbal clickbait.
Foivos wrote 1 day ago:
Did you really have compatibility issues with MS office in the
last 15 years?
AnonC wrote 1 day ago:
> Apple's office suite is my favorite I've ever used, and it's
not close.
Iâve written many comments criticizing this. Do you use a lot
of keyboard shortcuts when you use Numbers or Pages or Keynote or
do you use the trackpad/mouse a lot? I generally find these apps
and others lacking on the keyboard front, by which I mean that
itâs almost impossible to use them without a trackpad or a
mouse. I can completely live with just a keyboard on Excel or
LibreOffice Calc.
BTW, I hate all the MS Office applications (and find them quite
buggy and annoying) except for Excel. Maybe Iâm just a lot more
used to using Excel.
chongli wrote 1 day ago:
Numbers has a lot of keyboard shortcuts [1]. Are there
particular ones you're missing? Or is your issue that Numbers
has different keyboard shortcuts from the ones you're used to
in Excel?
(HTM) [1]: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/numbers/tana4519...
AnonC wrote 10 hours 56 min ago:
Actually both.
A lot of menu options donât seem to have keyboard
shortcuts. I know I can assign them, but defaults should be
better.
But the second one hits harder for me: âOr is your issue
that Numbers has different keyboard shortcuts from the ones
you're used to in Excel?â Considering that Numbers came
much later than Excel, some of the common ones couldâve
been directly adapted with Mac specific substitutions (like
using Cmd instead of Ctrl).
bt1a wrote 1 day ago:
You may want to look into Karabiner Elements. Understandable if
one doesn't want to have to allow a privileged daemon access to
key inputs, but it allows for complex, application-focus-aware
shortcuts. In the past I used a "Windows on MacOS" config
preset because it allowed for my 60~70 key keyboard to operate
similarly across win/linux/macos. Finally killed my last
windows boot drive and main linux... but I do have a
ritualistic annual step into a windows vm to file taxes on
crack err with a crakced turbotax hehehe. In-tooits lobbying
malpractice is deserving of petty flippancy
quietsegfault wrote 1 day ago:
Canât you set up keyboard shortcuts for basically any action
in a MacOS app?
AnonC wrote 10 hours 55 min ago:
My issue is with the defaults that are (not) available in
comparison to Excel or LibreOffice Calc.
crooked-v wrote 1 day ago:
As long as it has a menu item (easy) or is exposed to
Automator/Shortcuts (more complicated).
cyberge99 wrote 1 day ago:
There are apps to assign a key combinations to any menubar
dropdown menus.
crooked-v wrote 1 day ago:
You don't need an app for that, you can do it through
through System Settings -> Keyboard -> Keyboard Shortcuts
-> App Shortcuts.
sleepybrett wrote 1 day ago:
I used word for windows 2.0 well into the early 2000s. My needs
aren't crazy and I don't think word has added a single feature
I've cared about since. Pages is my current go-to.
ireadmevs wrote 1 day ago:
And below everything else is the web version of MSOffice. How I
hate whenever Iâm forced to use thatâ¦
selectively wrote 1 day ago:
I liked the way Pages 09 looked - it was beautiful - but the
compatibility wasn't there. Modern Pages is hideous.
And you hit the nail on the head with the whole 'Office = the
document always opens/looks right' thing.
chipotle_coyote wrote 1 day ago:
It's not pretty, but both Pages and Numbers are pretty powerful
in their modern incarnations. If you actually need Microsoft
Office, then you need it, but a lot of people who don't think
they could get away with just Apple's freebies probably could.
(Disclosure: I write 99% of my stuff in Emacs now, so I'm not
going to go that far out on a limb for iWork. It's just that
it's the best "Works"-style suite that I've used.)
thewebguyd wrote 1 day ago:
> If you actually need Microsoft Office
I also like Apple's office suite, the problem is network
effects. I'd even argue most people don't actually need MS
Office. The amount of people using PowerQuery, VBA, etc. is
probably less than 2% of users.
The problem is, because everyone else (in business) already
has and uses office, if you want to collaborate, that's what
you have to use. Open file formats didn't win out in the end.
bigyabai wrote 23 hours 42 min ago:
> Open file formats didn't win out in the end.
It's not "the end" yet. Many governments and sufficiently
motivated orgs are switching to ODF - it's only over for
proprietary file formats that pretend they can stand
toe-to-toe with docx. By eschewing open formats you're
making all the mistakes of .docx with none of the upsides
of the network effect.
jimbokun wrote 1 day ago:
Is it 2% who author content using those tools, or are you
also including anyone who might need to open and use a
spreadsheet using one of those technologies?
Closi wrote 1 day ago:
> the problem is network effects
This is absolutely the problem - with the added issue of
platform support.
Iâm the only Mac user in our company of 15, which means
Iâm also the only person that can open a .pages file.
Anyone can read a .docx, and if authored in word it will
actually look the same on both computers.
selectively wrote 1 day ago:
Needing VBA is more common than you think. Excel really has
no competitor.
MidnightRider39 wrote 1 day ago:
Crazy how different people experience this.
For me itâs completely inverted; Google is top place, then
Libreoffice, then MSOffice, then anything by Apple last place.
ghaff wrote 1 day ago:
Google does essentially everything I need. If I were more of a
spreadsheet power user these days, Excel. And maybe other
Office apps as needed for compatibility.
hnlmorg wrote 1 day ago:
I do like Keynote (their PowerPoint alternative) but I do agree
that everything else is absolute garbage. But I guess someone
has to like it.
aftergibson wrote 1 day ago:
Yeah that would by my ranking too. At work is Google because
it's the best, particularly for collabotation, personally all
in on FOSS.
genthree wrote 1 day ago:
I value performance and stability highly, and Apple's
productivity programs are so light I can leave them open in the
background and forget they're running for months at a time even
on fairly old, weak machines. And I'm not sure I've ever seen
any of them crash (I can't say the same about, say, LibreOffice
or pretty much any other Linux-associated productivity
software). That they're a ton more polished and stable than
things like Abiword or Gnumeric, and have most modern features
I'd expect (even live collaborative editing) puts them solidly
above those other light options.
I hate modern MSOffice's UI, plus it's full of slow, heavy
webtech which deducts a lot of points from basically anything
for me. Google's leaks memory (like most of their software...
so do Gmail tabs) and is so slow that it introduces a ton of
input latency, which drives me nuts, I hate to type in it,
aside from my experience with most of its formatting and
editing features being that they're very janky even by the
standards of GUI word processors. Both are very heavy on
resources, which means they have a huge hurdle to overcome on
the feature side before I'd consider them anything but
extremely-unpleasant.
Old (like... '00s) MSOffice is pretty good because it's not
such a resource hog, and the UI used to be really good.
ryandrake wrote 1 day ago:
I have a google sheet with less than 200 rows in it. Not
exactly Big Data. When I load it, the first 100 rows appear
pretty much instantly, but the following <100 rows take 9
seconds to load! WTF? I don't know any other spreadsheet that
takes that long to load more than 100 rows.
echelon wrote 1 day ago:
That's my exact ranking as well.
martibravo wrote 2 days ago:
A lot of new businesses are going the Notion/Google Drive route for
docs, tables and knowledge, plus Canva for presentations and more
visual work. It's not the majority, but the market is there.
radicaldreamer wrote 2 days ago:
That might be true for tech startups, but many businesses (even
"new" ones) go with Microsoft 365 as a default, especially
outside of the west coast or NYC.
TacticalCoder wrote 1 day ago:
Europe here. I disagree. Many SMEs are totally happy with
Google Workspace and Canva, as GP mentioned. I know people
using just that. And they don't understand why there are people
suffering from the Microsoft-Stockholm syndrome.
The market may not yet be 365-sized but as GP mentioned: it's
there.
And there are young people arriving at an age to open a
business who have never used a Windows computer in their entire
life. To them Microsoft is the company that make the
virus-infested, slow, computers full of ads they see at their
grandparents' house. That cohort ain't buying Windows / buying
Office / using Azure.
selectively wrote 1 day ago:
Exactly. 365 gets you perfect compatibility and the 'real tools
that professionals use'. Not Google Docs or some weird Apple
thing - the tools that always will read the document.
nolist_policy wrote 1 day ago:
Google docs actually has better MS Office compatibility than
the 365 Web Apps.
sleepybrett wrote 1 day ago:
If you can navigate the terrible UI enough to find the open
button on the proper 'ribbon', that is. The ribbon makeover
should have textbooks written about it so we can teach our
future UI designers not to make the same mistakes again.
oblio wrote 1 day ago:
Meh. Techies keep ranting about it but regular users are
just fine with it.
sleepybrett wrote 1 day ago:
As someone 'technical' who sat close to 'normies' who
hated the helpdesk guys so much they would interrupt me
with their problems, no they do not.
oblio wrote 1 day ago:
I don't see why the ribbon would be inherently worse
than a menu. It's still hierarchical, everything is
labeled and has an icon and it's bigger. Oh, and
everything has a shortcut that's highlighted...
martibravo wrote 1 day ago:
Iâm talking about the context I know which is Barcelona
companies
martibravo wrote 2 days ago:
Plus Pages, Numbers and Keynote are free on Macs, minus the new
paid features. I think it's a no brainer for new businesses
pixeldash928 wrote 1 day ago:
Unfortunately, there's a reason people prefer paid office
software over Apple's free suite. Apps like Numbers are chaotic
in the face of Excel.
SunshineTheCat wrote 2 days ago:
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.
philistine wrote 1 day ago:
There is now an option ONLY if you're in the US. The mail, calendar
etc. stuff is US-only.
simonw wrote 2 days ago:
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.
10729287 wrote 2 days ago:
Thereâs a grey one. So obviously, it was timed.
bouk wrote 2 days ago:
Hopefully some actual competition against GSuite (or whatever it's
called these days)
bitpush wrote 2 days ago:
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
NetMageSCW wrote 2 days ago:
Thousands in annual savings?
bigyabai wrote 2 days ago:
Not on iOS, being locked into the App Store never saved me a dime.
bigyabai wrote 1 day ago:
Anyone who's downvoting me better pay full price for FFVI Pixel
Remaster instead of emulating it, you filthy dogs.
dehrmann wrote 2 days ago:
Apple's really late to this.
tencentshill wrote 1 day ago:
They are just combining existing services: Apple Business Essentials,
Apple Business Manager, and Apple Business Connect.
It's like Microsoft now - put everything under one massive convoluted
control panel.
AndrewKemendo wrote 2 days ago:
Apple is âlateâ to everything which is why itâs the leader
Being early is the same as being wrong and thereâs 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.
jackdh wrote 2 days ago:
Depending on how you define "new" but there are certainly examples
of this, Spotify is the first to come to mind, AWS could be
another.
AndrewKemendo wrote 15 hours 49 min ago:
AWS was a literal spinout thatâs a different thing entirely
valzam wrote 2 days ago:
Ok but "Business Email" wasn't exactly invented yesterday...
AndrewKemendo wrote 1 day ago:
Which is my point. They did basically nothing new internally and
will be able to capture what...10-20% of overall business suite
market?
Thatâs genius
sosodev wrote 2 days ago:
TSMC. They dominate the semiconductor market because they're
consistently first to market with the world's most advanced chip
fabrication.
AndrewKemendo wrote 2 days ago:
Absolutely not TSMC was and has always been a pure play
âexecutionâ of chip foundry, based on the government of
Taiwan taking financial bets on a growing chip market.
In no way was TSMC the first to market for chips or chip
production or even any major chip fab product at its outset.
In fact they did exactly the Apple model and took what TI was
doing and used government money to scale it. I donât know a
single unique product from TSMC
If anything Texas Instruments (which is I grew up around in
Houston) could be considered actually building a good product
from scratch, look at them nowâ¦
grumbelbart2 wrote 1 day ago:
TSMC had the first copper interconnects, kind of their
breakthrough node at the time, and the first EV-based process.
ceejayoz wrote 2 days ago:
But they're an example of the same phenomeon; they were founded
in 1987, long after chip fabrication was a thing. They just did
it right.
sosodev wrote 2 days ago:
I think it's hard to know where to draw the line between
derivative product and something unique. If we follow your
logic that TSMC hasn't done anything new, then aren't all
computer manufacturers just rehashing the ENIAC or whatever? Is
a Tesla just a better model T? No, arguably we would say that
these products are new to market because they've integrated new
technologies in unique ways and often expended massive capital
on R&D to do so. TSMC is no different.
bigyabai wrote 2 days ago:
They took extreme risks on EUV lithography and accumulated
market share by being the first to shrink nodes.
bitpush wrote 2 days ago:
Vision Pro.
layer8 wrote 1 day ago:
Dominating the market??
NetMageSCW wrote 2 days ago:
They were still late, just not late enough.
AndrewKemendo wrote 2 days ago:
Vision Pro failed
Apple fails at every novel thing they try and crushes it at every
thing they copy
df3dsfs wrote 1 day ago:
Does anyone take this bozo seriously?
He writes like.... the worst comments. I genuinely hope he gets
much needed help. He seems like a bitter sad man.
AndrewKemendo wrote 1 day ago:
+1
I appreciate that you made a whole ass new account just for
this comment
Cheers to that
JoelMcCracken wrote 2 days ago:
The iPhone was revolutionary. There really was nothing like it
at the time. The closest thing (the PDA) was _nothing_ like it.
spogbiper wrote 1 day ago:
there were tons of smartphones on the market prior to the
iphone. i used several of them. mostly windows mobile
devices that required a stylus or keypad for input. they had
apps stores, web browsers, email, etc. copy and paste, which
the iphone lacked at release. from a functionality stance
there were many options very much like the iphone available.
the interface on the iphone was nicer for most things, and it
had a nicer web browser. not a different world of
functionality at all, just a bit nicer overall but also with
some big trade offs.
iknowstuff wrote 1 day ago:
A world of difference. Completely different products.
spogbiper wrote 1 day ago:
i don't understand this take at all. what did the iphone
do that the existing devices did not do?
iknowstuff wrote 1 day ago:
Multitouch
spogbiper wrote 21 hours 26 min ago:
thats certainly a nicer input method, but is that
what you're referring to when you say its an entirely
different product?
givinguflac wrote 1 day ago:
Couldnât agree more. Those amalgam windows mobile
devices were an interesting for the time, but hellish
experience imho.
acdha wrote 2 days ago:
That doesnât fit: Appleâs been experimenting with VR since
the 90s and Vision Pro was hardly novelâwell executed, but
not novel. I think itâs more complex where you have to think
about the products executives and Wall Street analysts want to
exist providing pressure against the âis it good enough to
buy?â response.
NetMageSCW wrote 2 days ago:
Apple Watch.
AndrewKemendo wrote 2 days ago:
There were literally thousands of smart watches that were
launched prior to the Apple Watch
Garmin anyone?
I think Timex and Casio even had ones in the 90s
givinguflac wrote 1 day ago:
Which ones of those can do notifications, health tracking,
sleep cycle, temperature/blood pressure? Iâll wait.
velocity3230 wrote 1 day ago:
Garmin.
unshavedyak wrote 2 days ago:
Honestly 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 wrote 2 days ago:
And Iâd 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 wasnât yet where most
consumers wanted.
bigyabai wrote 2 days ago:
Like 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...
d-us-vb wrote 2 days ago:
A costly gamble for tech they really wanted that wasn't mature
yet.
georgeburdell wrote 2 days ago:
One of the last great consumer companies is going B2B
sneak wrote 21 hours 2 min ago:
Apple 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.
andyferris wrote 1 day ago:
I 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.
mindwok wrote 1 day ago:
I 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 $$$.
amelius wrote 2 days ago:
They need to go OEM.
nhubbard wrote 1 day ago:
They did it in the 1990s and it failed so hard that it almost took
down the company.
amelius wrote 1 day ago:
Why can others do it?
nielsbot wrote 1 day ago:
Apple'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.
dhosek wrote 1 day ago:
Who has successfully managed this kind of transition? The
obvious case is IBM which is now essentially a consulting
company and doesnât sell PCs anymore.
lvspiff wrote 2 days ago:
its 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.
swiftcoder wrote 2 days ago:
> they've priced the consumer/pro-sumer out of the market
prettymuch
I'd argue that (the low end of) Apple products are the cheapest
they've ever been - the $599 iPhone 17e is below the
inflation-adjusted price of the original iPhone, and at $599 the
MacBook Neo is the cheapest launch price an Apple laptop has ever
listed at (not even adjusting for inflation!)
The maximum amount you can spend at the high-end has certainly gone
up over time, although the basic MacBook Pro Max config costs
roughly the same as it's peer from 10-15 years ago - nobody's
forcing folks to shell out for the 128GB of RAM (something that
didn't exist on laptops at all till very recently)
kstrauser wrote 2 days ago:
The company that just made a $600 Macbook?
bigyabai wrote 2 days ago:
Yes, 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 wrote 1 day ago:
The 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 wrote 1 day ago:
None 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.
givinguflac wrote 1 day ago:
> but the M-series Macs have spent 5 years changing
absolutely nothing.
You clearly keep up with tech news, kudos! Iâve seen no
changes from other major pc manufacturers in response to
Apple silicon, at all.
/s
swiftcoder wrote 1 day ago:
> Consumers do not want the Mac
Really? As far as I can tell, consumers mostly would love
to use Macs, but aren't willing to pay the price of entry
> Datacenters don't want Apple Silicon
Do you know how many people salivate at the prospect of an
M-based return of the Xserve?
philistine wrote 1 day 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!
bigyabai wrote 1 day ago:
I shouldn't have to repeat myself; this still doesn't
refute the claim that Apple has ceded the consumer
compute market. Cheap Macs have flooded the used market
for years, and people still gravitate towards plastic
Wintel boxes and Chromebooks.
> Apple makes stuff for affluent people
is just repeating the original claim upthread:
>> they've priced the consumer/pro-sumer out of the
market prettymuch and so B2B is the more sustainable
paying population.
philistine wrote 1 day ago:
The fact Apple maximizes for profits, and does not care
about market share, does not mean it has ceded the
market at all. Itâs the exact contrary. Appleâs
making money akin to the #2 position while being #4 and
thatâs an issue for you?
Once again you retreat to anecdata; how can you prove
that used Mac laptops are not popular?
dagmx wrote 2 days ago:
Apple always had a B2B component. This is just the latest attempt to
not make it completely subpar.
furyofantares wrote 2 days ago:
This 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 wrote 2 days ago:
Their voice assistant is somewhat opinionated about how it will
search the App Store for you [1] They dynamically reveal 1-3
results and only show a âsee more options in App Storeâ
button when they feel like it.
(HTM) [1]: https://i.ibb.co/zV8d9gbc/IMG-2177.jpg
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