[HN Gopher] Apple introduces new professional training to suppor...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Apple introduces new professional training to support growing IT
       workforce
        
       Author : todsacerdoti
       Score  : 127 points
       Date   : 2022-05-18 14:02 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
        
       | Kozmik1 wrote:
       | "Ok team, today we're going to learn how to close all those pop-
       | up windows that appear when you turn your Mac on. Remember, just
       | hit 'Remind me tomorrow'."
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | mewse-hn wrote:
       | Training for IT professionals? Didn't they just kill mac server?
       | What is there to learn, how to use a web browser?
        
         | Bud wrote:
         | There's actually a lot to learn. Which you'd know if you had
         | ever done any IT work supporting Macs.
        
           | sleepdreamy wrote:
           | My literal thought. If you know...you know. lol
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | ivan_gammel wrote:
         | A couple of examples:
         | 
         | 1. How to roll out certain security policies integrated with
         | your IM to the group of devices X?
         | 
         | 2. How to test OS update on group of devices Y, before
         | releasing it to all devices in your company?
         | 
         | If you are an ordinary iPad or Mac user, I doubt that you know
         | the answers.
        
           | nemacol wrote:
           | Is this something you can do without 3rd party software?
        
             | sofixa wrote:
             | Considering pretty much any "enterprise" deployment of Macs
             | uses an MDM like JAMF ( and IIRC even Apple use them and
             | recommend them), i highly doubt that. There were some very
             | limited features in macOS "server" when i last looked into
             | it a few years ago, but it required sticking a Mac Mini
             | somewhere ( which is not "enterprise" in any sense of that
             | word) and was extremely limited compared to "real" MDM
             | solutions.
        
               | nemacol wrote:
               | This is my experience as well. Few years ago I was tasked
               | with setting up a couple minis for our new mac
               | management. Took me ~2 hours to determine it was garbage
               | and find a 3rd party solution. A quick search and I see
               | Apple purchased Fleetsmith in 2020 so maybe that is
               | integrated now?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | happythebob wrote:
         | This is just a sales push so that Apple fanboys can pressure
         | their enterprises into thinking that Apple are good enterprise
         | devices and systems.
         | 
         | If you're old enough, Apple is another tech company that might
         | as well have started as a marketing company.
        
       | slg wrote:
       | Strange that Apple introduces classes on MDM mere weeks after
       | they retired their own MDM software. Maybe that software would
       | have gotten more adoption and therefore they wouldn't have felt
       | the need to retire it if they introduced these classes earlier.
       | Now with the lack of any Apple provided solution, I wonder if
       | they push users to a specific third-party to use as part of this
       | training.
        
         | odkurzacz wrote:
         | There is https://www.apple.com/business/essentials/ and I'm
         | sure it's not retired.
        
           | slg wrote:
           | From that page:
           | 
           | >One complete subscription...
           | 
           | Oh, so Apple just discontinued the one that comes free with
           | the purchase of the hardware[1] and wants people to move to a
           | subscription. I guess my confusion should have rather been
           | frustration.
           | 
           | [1] - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208312
        
             | odkurzacz wrote:
             | I don't get your comment. MDM API is still free, you can
             | implement and host MDM server yourself without any issues.
             | I'm pretty sure you will find some open source MDM
             | implementations if you look around.
        
               | slg wrote:
               | Profile Manager was software that Apple used to provide
               | free with macOS Server which was free with certain
               | hardware purchases. This software provided a native way
               | to manage multiple devices that was ideal for small
               | businesses and families.
               | 
               | I understand there are non-free and non-native
               | alternatives, but the discontinuing of free software is
               | still frustrating. It would be like Apple suddenly
               | deciding to make Safari a monthly subscription. Sure, I
               | could pay for it or I could start using Firefox, but it
               | is still functionality that used to be native and free
               | that no longer is.
        
             | rmbyrro wrote:
             | Why are you frustrated? Apple is a for-profit business.
             | 
             | It's expected to do things maximizing their revenue.
             | 
             | If you expect businesses to do differently, you've set your
             | self up for a life of frustrations.
             | 
             | EDIT: there's nothing wrong with this either; they have
             | real people working there, maintaining this stuff, and real
             | capital invested; if you find their services valuable, you
             | better pay or else they won't last long...
        
               | slg wrote:
               | Are you seriously asking why someone might be frustrated
               | that a thing that used to be free is no longer free?
        
             | londons_explore wrote:
             | Businesses prefer something with ongoing support, and that
             | tends to be a subscription service.
        
               | happyopossum wrote:
               | In the modern world, MDM also works far better as a cloud
               | service than a privately run server behind a corporate
               | firewall.
        
               | phpisthebest wrote:
               | Admittedly this may not be the case for apple devices,
               | but I know more than a few enterprises that use Android
               | MDM on Prem behind the Firewall specifically for Devices
               | that should not ever contact the Internet, they are used
               | for internal processes.
        
         | jjoonathan wrote:
         | It looks like they retired the old solution to make way for the
         | new one. Seems reasonable.
        
       | KaiserPro wrote:
       | Perhaps this means that apple might start documenting the really
       | fun breaking changes they seem to put into every release.
       | 
       | if so, that would be grand.
        
         | tomcam wrote:
         | Love your sense of humor
        
         | assttoasstmgr wrote:
         | How about they start by publishing official EOL/support dates
         | for their operating system software? Which is a basic
         | expectation of any bordering-on-competent IT department so they
         | can perform advance planning. But I guess that would upturn the
         | apple cart (no pun intended) of the culture of secrecy.
         | 
         | This is why Apple will continue to be a failure in any IT
         | department larger than a startup. The only reason MacOS is
         | supported in larger businesses is because the whiny graphics
         | department would riot if they took their Macs away. And I don't
         | want to hear "but I do all my software development on a
         | Mac!!!1!" Yeah, in an unmanaged configuration on your rogue
         | developer box, sure, whatever. No one is running thousands of
         | Macs outside Apple and if they are they're not doing it without
         | many third-party system management kludges and an army of
         | people to support it. And the whole thing hangs on by a thread.
         | 
         | Apple's enterprise support is a joke and will continue to be
         | unless there are major changes. Even Linux and FreeBSD (!) are
         | better at this.
        
           | jerlam wrote:
           | IBM says they're managing around 100K Mac devices with Jamf,
           | and it's even saving them money:
           | 
           | https://www.techradar.com/news/ibm-exec-says-macs-are-way-
           | mo...
        
             | assttoasstmgr wrote:
             | That article claims 90k employees are using Macs but they
             | represent 15% of all machines. IBM has 345k employees. So
             | that means 600k 'machines' ... desktops? servers? Are we to
             | assume everyone with a Mac also has a Windows or Linux PC
             | for real work? Something about that story doesn't add up.
             | It looks like an ad for Jamf.
        
           | scarface74 wrote:
        
           | philistine wrote:
           | Yeah, and then the users need far less support time. It's a
           | trade off that makes sense for some companies.
        
           | MichaelBurge wrote:
           | Facebook has tens of thousands of employees and everyone
           | there is issued a Mac and iPhone. The Amazon employees I know
           | were issued Macs as well.
           | 
           | Looking back to see if you were ever right, I see a 2013
           | article[1] claiming                   Google explained that
           | it's managing a fleet of over 43,000 Macs its employees use
           | as of now if you start at Google and want to use a platform
           | other than Mac you have to make a business case
           | 
           | You're talking about "larger businesses" but the largest tech
           | businesses(#1, 3, 4, 5, 7 in order of market cap on
           | S&P500)[2] require everyone to use Macs.
           | 
           | [1] https://news.yahoo.com/google-wants-employees-using-macs-
           | not...
           | 
           | [2] https://www.liberatedstocktrader.com/sp-500-companies/
        
         | reactjavascript wrote:
         | Or, make it so I can do my _own_ "diff". In other words, teach
         | me how to fish. Make the information discoverable.
        
       | Mo3 wrote:
       | If the knowledge and expertise of the Geniuses at the Genius Bar
       | is any indication, it's going to be "how to buy more Apple
       | products to solve any random issue" and "how to replace a
       | perfectly functional device with a new device instead of doing
       | basic maintenance work"
        
         | Bud wrote:
         | I've had about 20 years of experience with getting service at
         | Apple Stores, both for myself and for clients, and I think your
         | criticism is unfounded, vague, and frankly sounds made-up
         | rather than being a serious evaluation.
         | 
         | Apple consistently scores at or near the top of the industry
         | for its support and service.
         | 
         | Anecdotally, they have gone above and beyond what was required
         | or expected, for me, many times, including helping out when
         | products were out of warranty.
        
           | Mo3 wrote:
           | > they have gone above and beyond what was expected
           | 
           | 100%
        
           | lostgame wrote:
           | >> Anecdotally, they have gone above and beyond what was
           | required or expected, for me, many times, including helping
           | out when products were out of warranty.
           | 
           | Absolutely, from replacing an entire water-damaged MacBook
           | (with a minor spec boost on the upgrade, even!) - to simply
           | handing me a new identical iPhone when I went in for a screen
           | repair - etc, etc...I can honestly say that Apple's
           | incredible customer service is a huge part of the reason I
           | still use their products nearly 20 years after I bought my
           | first one.
        
         | rejectfinite wrote:
         | This is for enterprises and companies to run their mac fleet.
         | Not end-user customer support.
        
           | Mo3 wrote:
           | That's what I was implying, yes.
        
         | boplicity wrote:
         | My experience a few years ago was they did a repair, out of
         | warranty. It didn't work, so they replaced the mainboard and
         | two other components for no additional cost. That was an
         | excellent experience.
         | 
         | Unfortunately, I can't use the new Macbooks. Looking at the
         | screen for more than a few minutes gives me a headache. (Even
         | with adjusting many different settings.)
        
           | CoastalCoder wrote:
           | Any idea what the exact issue is with the screens?
        
           | sofixa wrote:
           | Is it the reflectiveness ? Reflective screens really strain
           | my eyes, compared to matte screens and I haven't really found
           | a "solution" besides just to use an external matte screen
           | with my company-issued MBP. It sucks when I have to use it on
           | itself when on the road ( due to the screen, the touchpad i
           | dislike and which can't have a separate scroll direction, and
           | the keyboard layout which is different than my regular
           | keyboard just enough to be annoying).
        
             | boplicity wrote:
             | It's probably not the reflective screen; as the 2013
             | Macbook Pro is just fine, and also reflective. I wish I
             | knew the answer, as the Macbooks are incredible machines. I
             | wonder if it is either too bright, or too low contrast when
             | turned down. I can't tell. It is strange, and annoying, for
             | sure.
             | 
             | I'm hoping to find a decent laptop as an alternative; the
             | new Macbook Pros have excellent keyboards, touchpads,
             | speakers, microphone, webcam, processing power, etc. I'm
             | not sure which alternative has nearly as "complete" of a
             | package.
        
         | mirntyfirty wrote:
         | Along with hooking into as many subscriptions as possible.
        
           | tmp_anon_22 wrote:
           | Hey Tinder is only $40/mo now!
        
             | mirntyfirty wrote:
             | Good thing that's not factored into CPI
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | ivan_gammel wrote:
       | That's a big thing. When your organization deploys hundreds of
       | end user Apple devices, you definitely want to make it
       | maintainable. Updating inventory system, rolling out centralized
       | OS updates via canary group, pushing new versions of software,
       | setting up security policies, tracking and blocking stolen
       | devices - all this stuff requires some internal expertise in the
       | IT team.
        
       | zackmorris wrote:
       | I feel like perhaps this is the wrong approach. Apple was once
       | known for making ubiquitous hardware and software that didn't
       | need a manual. So I view most IT topics as anti-patterns that
       | Apple should be solving rather than coping with.
       | 
       | If I worked at Apple, I'd vote to invest more resources in fixing
       | longstanding bugs. They make great stuff, but I've noticed a
       | trend lately where nearly every Apple solution has a poison pill
       | somewhere that makes it painful for a small minority of users and
       | edge cases. For example:
       | 
       | * Apple Time Machine does a 2-phase backup where the first phase
       | is a "preparing backup" step that has no progress indicator,
       | making it impossible to predict how long a backup will take. I've
       | seen it take anywhere from a few minutes to days, meaning that if
       | I forget to back up at the end of my workday, I simply have to
       | skip it and swallow the anxiety unless I want to hang around for
       | half an hour to back up 300 MB of changes.
       | 
       | * iOS Safari added a search bar at the top for finding common
       | tabs like "gmail". Which works great unless you have hundreds of
       | tabs open, which requires scrolling pages and pages of tabs, and
       | I've inadvertently thrown tabs away sideways as I was scrolling.
       | A real solution here would be to make the search field available
       | at any scroll height and/or provide a way to manage large numbers
       | of tabs (which in fairness is an open problem, just like email).
       | 
       | * iOS has an issue where Wi-Fi degrades after a few minutes/hours
       | of use with various wireless routers, requiring the user to
       | acquire a new DHCP lease (basically turn Wi-Fi off and back on
       | again). I notice this especially with browsing social apps like
       | TikTok or if the router's networking stack has gotten fragmented
       | with UDP packets with P2P software like BitTorrent or video
       | streaming. Apple needs to detect this and acquire a new DHCP
       | lease automatically, rather than pretending that they don't have
       | a problem.
       | 
       | * External display support is hopelessly broken, especially with
       | DisplayPort/HDMI dongles. I have a 50/50 chance of the left and
       | right displays being swapped, regardless of which ports I plug
       | the cables into. There's no debounce period between the time I
       | connect a display and when Safari starts rearranging windows, so
       | I literally have to remember to force-quit Safari before I pack
       | up my work computer or it will lock up for many minutes when I
       | connect it to displays again. I'd vote to scrap the code
       | completely and start again from first principles, approaching it
       | from a no-code perspective, and think about managing the display
       | IDs as simple sets, falling back to heuristics in pathological
       | cases like two or more displays having the same ID (which should
       | never happen, but display protocols are hopelessly convoluted due
       | to DRM and other concerns).
       | 
       | * The on-off switch on Apple's wireless keyboard is atrociously
       | unergonomic because it can't be used one-handed without sliding
       | the keyboard into something (like a cup of coffee that then
       | spills onto the computer). Also the anodized edge of the keyboard
       | is so sharp that I accidentally cut through my front door screen
       | as I was leaving for work one day.
       | 
       | I could go on forever because like I said, so many of Apple's
       | solutions have these poison pills. This is a tiny sampling of the
       | things that cause me pain on a daily basis that I don't think
       | will ever be addressed. I simply can't get into the myriad of
       | issues with tons of other apps like Xcode, because that would
       | fill volumes. Which is why I feel that Apple going the IT route
       | will lead to further passing of the buck and stagnation,
       | similarly to how Microsoft has struggled.
        
       | Spivak wrote:
       | This makes total sense because I've seen first hand Apple lose
       | whole office Mac contracts because the business has no one who
       | can administer a fleet of Macs like they can Windows machines.
       | Everyone always talks about Dell/Lenovo being cheaper but after
       | doing the purchasing they're really not -- you can buy less for
       | less sure, but the difference for comparable laptops is
       | negligible when budgets start rounding to the nearest 5 zeros.
       | Ecosystems matter at lot more and there is remarkably little
       | information on Apple's MDM solutions like Jamf where AD and
       | InTune are turnkey by comparison.
        
         | chrisseaton wrote:
         | Now that almost all non-tech-applications are web-based, is
         | there any need for IT to admin your system like they used to?
        
           | Tsiklon wrote:
           | Usually in many organisations it's a case of enforcing
           | compliance across the fleet as opposed to actively
           | administering the machines; enforcing browser profiles,
           | software deployments and configurations, OS patch revisions,
           | directory services integrations, that sort of thing.
           | 
           | But yes many computer workers effectively use their systems
           | like chromebooks. Hell I'm in an operations role and aside
           | from my terminal and mail client, I use my system like a
           | glorified chromebook hah
        
           | rejectfinite wrote:
        
           | KaiserPro wrote:
           | Security.
           | 
           | Like VPNs, app store policies, user-creation, All of this
           | needs a decent understanding of the OS and a config
           | management system to implement it.
           | 
           | The problem with OSX is that most release change things,
           | often in undocumented ways. Like breaking how AD integrates
           | (thanks 10.6)
        
           | kriro wrote:
           | Well basically in the Windows world you have user management,
           | files and printing, security/patching and then taking care of
           | programs on the user's computers and infrastructure (servers,
           | setting up a VPN etc.).
           | 
           | Depending on the organization, there are many non web-based
           | programs that are run. Think about an engineering company.
           | They'll probably have some sort of CAD like SolidWorks and
           | something like Matlab etc.
           | 
           | Even if everything would be web based you still have to
           | handle licensing/logins somehow. But yeah in theory the users
           | need less hand holding because less stuff is actually
           | installed.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | chrisseaton wrote:
             | Vast majority of the things you list seem like a very
             | legacy way to do things.
             | 
             | If you have to list 'printers' to give an example then you
             | know it might not be as relevant these days.
        
               | zrobotics wrote:
               | I hate printers with every fiber of my being, but for
               | certain companies they are unavoidable. We run our own
               | fulfillment center rather than use 3rd party logistics,
               | and there is absolutely no way we could operate without
               | them. If the printers in the warehouse go down, then I
               | have to explain why customers aren't getting orders
               | fulfilled and we have hourly employees waiting for me to
               | fix things. Not everyone works in an office.
               | 
               | That being said, if the printer in the office has issues
               | I may not even hear about it for a month...
        
               | greedo wrote:
               | Any decent sized organization, even ones that don't have
               | regulatory compliance to worry about, has to deal with
               | the majority of things listed. My company has roughly 200
               | Macs in use, around 5% of the total endpoints in use. The
               | admins who specialize in this have to worry primarily
               | about patch management, application deployment, and
               | security. Authentication is through AD, so any changes
               | that might affect this have to be done carefully. And
               | yes, printing is still a big deal.
        
               | chrisseaton wrote:
               | > worry primarily about patch management
               | 
               | Don't the OS and app prompt for their own updates these
               | days?
        
               | rejectfinite wrote:
               | Sure but users can decline them and never reboot
        
               | namdnay wrote:
               | There's no way an enterprise can follow the consumer
               | cadence for patches and updates. There are dozens if not
               | hundreds of custom apps that could break
        
               | itisit wrote:
               | Hoping for the best is not how compliance works.
        
               | chrisseaton wrote:
               | I'm not being obtuse - but if you can't trust your
               | employees to run the updates they're asked to, then what
               | are you able to trust them with?
        
               | aatharuv wrote:
               | Your employees have deliverables. Maybe they're customer
               | facing. Maybe they're not directly customer facing.
               | 
               | But the incentive structure may prioritize getting their
               | deliverables done over doing patching at least in the
               | short term. The corporate hierarchies for IT and their
               | main organization might only have a common manager at the
               | very top of the company.
        
               | easton wrote:
               | They do, but people don't click on the "do the update"
               | button so you need a way to force it for compliance
               | reasons. And sometimes you want to withhold an update if
               | it breaks an important app, etc.
        
               | plonk wrote:
               | You don't want the whole office to be out of work for a
               | day because the last Nvidia update broke some
               | professional software your techs are using. This lets you
               | test the patch on some machines before rolling it out to
               | your whole org.
        
         | mgkimsal wrote:
         | I was surprised they didn't have this 10-15 years ago. I sort
         | of wonder if Jobs had lived if he'd had pivoted towards this
         | enterprise/support direction.
        
           | giobox wrote:
           | Theres a fair amount of quotes I'm too lazy to find now where
           | Jobs expresses his absolute distain for the "enterprise"
           | market.
           | 
           | With enterprise software, the end user is almost never the
           | actual paying customer, which when you are trying to make
           | really end-user focused products that delight in the way
           | Apple do, can lead to incentives that prioritise enterprise
           | needs over consumer - look at the huge number of enterprise
           | specific features Microsoft historically have built, that
           | have affected consumers too. Jobs loved making consumer
           | products so much, I can't imagine he ever would have been
           | able to really chase enterprise customers.
           | 
           | The move to targeting services and enterprise more at Apple
           | happened under Cook, because, well, he has to continue
           | growing the company and Services + more engagement with
           | enterprise markets have been critical to growth post Jobs
           | under Cook. Perhaps Steve ultimately would have done the same
           | as Cook, given iPhone can't grow forever etc, but it would
           | have been a major shift in his opinions/outlook for Apple.
           | 
           | I'm talking about "Enterprise" in the traditional software
           | industry sense, which is _not_ the same industry apple target
           | for creative professionals, even if tools like MDM etc can
           | overlap. Jobs loved  "professional" users in creative
           | industries, not enterprise volume sales and fleet management
           | tools etc etc.
        
             | spitfire wrote:
             | Steve jobs got burnt by enterprise customers at NeXT. Once
             | he got burnt he had a habit of pivoting away and never
             | revisiting a subject.
             | 
             | Which is a shame NeXT (apple) had a world leading ORM and
             | RPC system in 1990. It would still impress people today.
        
               | KerrAvon wrote:
               | I dunno about that. The ORM was DatabaseKit? That didn't
               | make into OS X, but if DO is the RPC system, that was
               | available in Mac OS X. It was full of security holes and
               | was prone to deadlocks.
               | 
               | I also suspect people raised alongside ubiquitous web 2.0
               | technology would be a lot less impressed with the NeXT
               | demos than all of us who saw them with pre-web eyes.
        
               | spitfire wrote:
               | I was thinking enterprise objects framework which came
               | after they realized databasekit was a dud.
               | 
               | It's equivalent to rails or similar orms. But it
               | integrated with interface builder. See this [1] demo
               | about 23 minutes in... just after he demos how great next
               | step handles faces. He demos building a query crud app
               | fully drag n drop.
               | 
               | Are you sure DO was available in OS X?
               | 
               | [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4UiGnpmwAJk
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | Mountain_Skies wrote:
             | Even worse than the Enterprise things that made their way
             | into Microsoft's consumer products are the things that
             | Microsoft rejected that enterprise wanted. Raymond Chen
             | mentions these requests often in his 'The Old New Thing'
             | blog. I can imagine Jobs going ballistic on enterprise
             | customers who make one too many of these requests (and in
             | some cases, the first request might be that one too many).
        
           | cestith wrote:
           | I'd guess he would have. Jobs cared about professional users,
           | and not just in film, graphic design, and music. Many
           | decisions these past years feel like the company has not seen
           | the need to invest in enterprise users and especially not
           | enterprise fleet management.
        
             | jeromegv wrote:
             | Jobs cared about professional users but never cared much
             | about enterprise.
             | 
             | There's a good quote in this 2010 article:
             | https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-steve-jobs-hates-about-
             | th...
             | 
             | >"What I love about the consumer market, that I always
             | hated about the enterprise market, is that we come up with
             | a product, we try to tell everybody about it, and every
             | person votes for themselves. They go 'yes' or 'no,' and if
             | enough of them say 'yes,' we get to come to work tomorrow.
             | That's how it works. It's really simple. With the
             | enterprise market, it's not so simple. The people that use
             | the products don't decide for themselves, and the people
             | that make those decisions sometimes are confused. We love
             | just trying to make the best products in the world for
             | people and having them tell us by how they vote with their
             | wallets whether we're on track or not."
        
               | rovr138 wrote:
               | I mean, if they had solutions that compete with what the
               | other market has, then companies can support both.
               | 
               | This professional training would help with that. It's not
               | necessarily that things aren't available. Sometimes it's
               | just not having someone that knows how to.
        
               | colechristensen wrote:
               | The motivations of enterprises and individuals are
               | different. Trying to please both or compromise between
               | them creates worse outcomes for the individual users. The
               | choices you make when interests conflict lowers quality.
        
               | twoWhlsGud wrote:
               | Indeed. And there's another side that we used to discuss
               | - many folks have negative associations with the gear
               | they use at work _because_ of the way they 're managed by
               | IT orgs. Compare a Windows box with a heavy-handed AV
               | setup etc with the same tier of hardware with a stock OS
               | install - the stock version is often a lot more
               | responsive/usable. (And obviously the IT dept may have
               | its reasons for locking down, but that's besides the
               | point.)
               | 
               | Due to near-dominance of iPhone/iPads, Apple doesn't have
               | a problem getting mindshare these days, so brand
               | familiarity (which could be an offsetting benefit of a
               | stronger enterprise presence) is not much of a problem.
        
               | massysett wrote:
               | I'm not so sure about this, my Windows at home is a stock
               | one and it randomly inserts junk into my Start menu and
               | comes with crapware. The one I use at work has full-time
               | admins to protect me from this garbage. I bought the
               | Windows box to do only one thing (be essentially a dumb
               | terminal to connect to work) but even using Windows for a
               | task this small is such a bad experience that if I had it
               | to do over I would just spend the extra money and get a
               | Mac Mini.
        
           | jshier wrote:
           | They did! I'm an Apple Certified Support Professional and
           | Server Administrator (10.5 and 10.6). They had a whole series
           | of certifications you could get, just like Microsoft (though
           | not as extensive). Those all went by the wayside when they
           | started dropping their enterprise products (Mac OS X Server,
           | Xserve) to the point I'm not even sure what existed before
           | this announcement (haven't been an admin in 12 years at this
           | point).
           | 
           | On a related note, once I took the tests for the SP and SA
           | certifications (in 2009), my name was supposed to show up on
           | Apple's site for certified professionals. This was important,
           | as any employer would check that list to make sure your
           | certifications were up to date. Apparently that process
           | wasn't automatic, as I wasn't on the list after three months.
           | One email to steve@apple.com later and I was on the site!
        
       | adolph wrote:
       | Probably need a lite version for families too. I was wasting time
       | updating each kid's Screentime settings hands-on-device before
       | realizing if I got them AppleIDs I change settings remotely.
        
         | chrisseaton wrote:
         | Isn't that the Genius Bar?
        
           | adolph wrote:
           | Does that still exist? I havn't been since before I had kids
           | and still physically went past a store's curbside in the
           | early 2Ks.
        
             | chrisseaton wrote:
             | > Does that still exist?
             | 
             | Yes - just walk into any store.
        
               | dhosek wrote:
               | Although in the Covid era, stopping into a store on a
               | whim is not always possible. Apple is on the right side
               | of the bell curve when it comes to Covid cautiousness, it
               | seems, and it's not uncommon for a store to be
               | appointment only when everything else nearby is open like
               | it's 2019.
        
           | gnicholas wrote:
           | Getting appts is a pain, and there's always an 'unexpected'
           | wait because they're running behind schedule. Probably better
           | to go to their tutorial classes for a particular topic and
           | then ask the trainer how to do the thing you want to do.
        
         | gjsman-1000 wrote:
         | Screen Time on macOS is _super broken_ it 's insane. The "ask
         | for permission" prompt when visiting a blocked website predates
         | HTML5, and the web restrictions have a tendency to "fail open"
         | after a few hours allowing _everything_ to pass through. If you
         | choose the approved-site-only option for a younger child, you
         | 'll get popups galore from the built-in apps phoning home and
         | have to approve them all manually. I gave up fighting it and
         | had to buy a 3rd-party solution because what's the point of a
         | parental control that randomly stops working?
         | 
         | Fix it Apple, I beg you.
        
           | thekiptxt wrote:
           | And on iOS, _every single time_ I share a link from HN, that
           | website persists in screen time.
           | 
           | E.g. if I were to share the link to TFA in WhatsApp, my
           | screen time tomorrow would say "21 hours on apple.com"
           | 
           | Only clearing browser data fixes this. It's absurd.
        
           | nojito wrote:
           | https://www.apple.com/feedback/
        
             | Y-bar wrote:
             | You're posting that link without comment, as if we haven't
             | used that through the years and from experience noticed
             | that nothing ever happens with bugs, requests, and such
             | submitted through that form.
        
               | nojito wrote:
               | Nope. Same reason why people post long detailed complaint
               | comments on social media without submitting pull requests
               | to open-source projects.
               | 
               | People are lazy. It's much easier to use social media
               | than it is to share feedback or submit pull requests.
        
               | lostgame wrote:
               | You've clearly never had the displeasure of filing a
               | Radar report.
               | 
               | It's about as effective to write the report on paper and
               | light it on fire - the chance of it getting actually
               | addressed is about the same.
        
               | eropple wrote:
               | Almost anyone who ever filed a Radar is pinching the
               | bridge of their nose right now.
        
         | corrral wrote:
         | I miss when those settings were separate from "screen time".
         | They were much simpler. Screen Time's more flexible but takes a
         | lot more effort to set up, and I'm never sure I've gotten it
         | all the way I want.
        
       | elpakal wrote:
       | I like the idea of them making app development tutorials, their
       | other SwiftUI one was well done IMHO and this one looks like they
       | put the same amount of thought into it:
       | https://training.apple.com/appdeveloper
        
       | youniverse wrote:
       | I just looked at both new courses. All the page reading time
       | estimates are pretty fucking misleading. All the ones I saw said
       | 5 min. but they just have a list of links that are an hour of
       | reading material each. I'm bewildered.
        
         | happyopossum wrote:
         | The pages you're talking about are listed as references - not
         | required reading, so 5 minutes to review and familiarize
         | yourself with what reference material is available is
         | completely reasonable.
        
           | youniverse wrote:
           | I hope you're right but even clicking into random required
           | reading I was still getting lists of links? Maybe I got an
           | unlucky sampling but the few resources I glanced at really
           | should be required reading.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-05-18 23:01 UTC)