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geoffharcourt 6 hours 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.)

pottertheotter 23 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

> 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 couldn’t connect with our client’s 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.

cocoflunchy 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

wpm 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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.

IrishTechie 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It can be done that way, but it is definitely not the norm. Businesses will generally “purchase” (many for €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 3 hours ago | parent [-]

If they’re using Managed Apple IDs they will have no access at all to the app store and won’t 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.

anxman 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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.

FireBeyond 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The baffling thing is that iOS+MDM has been fantastic over the years. macOS is a completely different beast though.

jamiecurle 13 minutes ago | parent [-]

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.

wil421 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

How does a company allow personal Apple IDs?

pottertheotter 31 minutes ago | parent [-]

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 20 minutes ago | parent [-]

yes, that's exactly how it happens.