Apple Shares 11 Reasons Why Business Users Should Choose Macs

[popaboucher]

They actually had a twelve-item list, with #12 being:

“Apple provides a clear road map of future plans so business can feel secure in their future with Mac computers.”

Then they realized that this wasn’t true.

They do provide roadmap but only to strategic partners ($$$$) under NDA

 

[EdT]

"When compared with the latest model of the best-selling PC notebook purchased by businesses in its price range, MacBook Air with M1 offers up to 2x faster Excel performance, up to 50% faster web application responsiveness, up to 2x faster browser graphics performance and up to 2x longer battery life when video conferencing with Zoom on a single charge."

Ok, this short paragraph is something that I had not seen before. In the past I kept seeing how the M1 version of whatever laptop compared to the Intel based Apple laptops, not other brands in general. Now you need to make it easily connect to multiple monitors and other devices.

 

[LeadingHeat]

Until it breaks and you need to buy a 2nd device to cover downtime (my company gave me a loaner laptop when I had to get mine fixed). And until Apple can address this, a mac is no better than a paperweight when it comes to business.

I work for a multi-million dollar company, and we still have to use the same Applecare service that the common plebians use. While I'm not knocking it, it means that something like a piece of dirt under a keyboard caused multiple-day downtime (and that's with a loaner laptop purcahsed by my company at their own expense), and taking it in to get the keyboard fixed might result in all of your data being wiped. There's nothing business friendly about it.

Dell will come on site and replace a keyboard, no downtime at all except while they're physically working on the computer.

There are other types of AppleCare, for enterprise. They handle break-fix like AppleCare+ does. Here’s a handy link for you. HelpDesk, OS Support, and Enterprise

AppleCare Professional

1-800-APLCARE (1-800-275-2273) An AppleCare Professional support specialist can provide integrated expert support for your needs.

www.apple.com

 

[LeadingHeat]

As someone who helps manage Macs with an MDM for clients, I wouldn't call it zero touch, not like iOS.

How do you figure that? If you have MDM set up properly, they truly are zero touch. Unless you’re using an MDM platform that doesn’t support DEP… then that sounds like you need to look into other providers. Jamf or Mosyle are two great options.

 

[dba415]

Sorry but Apple can't win here. You can do everything on a windows that you can on a Mac and it's cheaper. There are even more things you can only do on windows. No company is going to pay a premium for a Mac device. Of course, most companies have different OSes, so some people can use a Mac if their job requires it, but for the average employee, they are looking at what is the lowest cost device for their employees.

 

[VictorTango777]

Unless everyone in the company, both Mac and PC users, use only web applications that run 100 percent identical on the major web browsers, there will be issues. For every business that uses "real" desktop applications, there are always software companies that either:
1. Have no Mac version of their application
2. Have a Mac version but it behaves differently or is missing features found in the Windows version. And the company is too lazy/incompetent to fix their Mac version, or has a vested interest in not fixing it.

Be careful when suggesting that Mac users should just run Windows applications in virtual machines or remote desktops. If I was an IT manager determined to get rid of Macs, I would start by intentionally leveraging features that are only available in the Windows versions of applications. Then when Mac users complain about not being able to do the work, I would act more than happy to set them up on Windows VMs and remote desktops, under the guise of supporting Macs. But in reality, I would be plotting to get Mac users accustomed to running only Windows applications on their Macs. After turning those Macs into nothing more than empty shells for running Windows, it would be easy to justify replacing Macs with PCs.

 

[T Coma]

I can add to the list.

They are more expensive to repair
They are MUCH more difficult to repair
They will stop supporting newer OS versions after some years.
They are so integrated now that one failed part can often require replacing entire motherboard which costs nearly as much as a new machine.

and all the colors - don’t forget the colors!

 

[MaximizedAction]

They didn't mention the costs and time sink of switching your company from Windows to Mac, which would include finding appropriate software alternatives for Windows-only software (because you can't install regular Windows on Apple Silicon).

What's the target group for that pdf? What serious company looks at marketing material that says

M1 is the first personal computer chip built using cutting-edge 5-nanometer process technology and is packed with an astounding 16 billion transistors, the most Apple has ever put into a chip.

and goes "you know, with this many transistors, we can finally drop Visual Studio"?

And the pdf is so chock full of adjectives, it just doesn't read like it's speaking to professionals to me. Maybe small businesses are convinced by this? Shareholders will definitely get that language though.

 

[MaximizedAction]

dupe

 

[StefDeLux]

They support Active Directory, but that is a 22 years old technology that is fast being replaced by Azure Active directory. Azure AD is a totally different product that has nothing to do with the old Active Directory. Azure AD uses standard protocol SAML2, had hundreds of thousand apps ready to use it and is fast becoming the identity foundation in most companies. Not supporting Azure AD to authenticate on a Mac is becoming a road block for enterprise adoption. As a cloud consultant, I now recommend against it because Active Directory is so much less secure than Azure AD.

 

[mi7chy]

I'm sure a lot of companies are lining up to be paying beta testers for Apple.

 

[dgdosen]

Seems odd to push this nine months after the chip was introduced.

The M1 is great for me, but it's not great for all. Where that M1X/M2/M2X?

 

[cknlol]

If Apple would finally introduce enterprise support levels and support then yeah, we would probably switch. Until then, it's not worth it from our perspective as much as I would love this.

Oh - and Azure AD ...

 

[cknlol]

Ridiculous and absurd. Very few schools and only a handful of businesses will have Windows-only software. This is not year 1999. 🙄

I am afraid you do not understand how public sector works.

 

[orthorim]

IT departments should love it, since it now comes with weekly security patches, just like Microsoft....

 

[scaramoosh]

Professionals just seem to complain more and more about Apple. I see the M1 as the best casual Laptop, the best for the average consumer and people who travel vlog.

 

[Akrapovic]

Head of IT at a software development studio here.

We use all MacBooks. We have around 300 of them dating back to 2015 MBPs, which are still great for development work. We have some devs on M1 Airs, and others wanting them (but trying to hold them back - I want to wait for the M1X/M2 MBPs, because they'll want those for the screen size).

We don't get 5+ years out of the very few Windows machines we have. And laptop prices sky rocketed during the pandemic (except for Apples). There's no real advantage to me moving our companies to Windows. Macs are easier to administer to the detail level we want (I realise some companies want more control - we don't, so it suits us).

I am a big fan of Windows for many things. But I'm glad we use macs in our workplace. The decision to use macs predates me becoming Head of IT - but I'm not even considering changing it.

 

[aWaldo]

Something as easy as using two monitors is a gigantic hassle. Maybe invest in your product to convince us, not your marketing!

I’ve never had one issue with multiple monitors, both work and personal, and I’m still on a 2015 MacBook. It’s always been fantastic.

Meanwhile this is being lauded as a great new feature on Windows 11, because previous versions have been so bad at remembering monitor configurations/setups.

 

[Akrapovic]

Big Sur remembers your monitor configurations when you between them. I have 2 monitors at home, 1 monitor at work, and when I move between them it always remembers my last work setting and last home setting. I've never had that complaint from the 300 odd mac users we manager here.

 

[StuBeck]

As someone who helps manage Macs with an MDM for clients, I wouldn't call it zero touch, not like iOS.

Thats surprising, our PCs here are zero touch for the sales people. We just upload a file we get from the manufactuer to Azure, ensure the system we're shipping them matches the serial number in our system and it loads everything first time they login. We of course do a follow up call to confirm everything worked, but its quite easy to support.

 

[StuBeck]

I’ve never had one issue with multiple monitors, both work and personal, and I’m still on a 2015 MacBook. It’s always been fantastic.

Meanwhile this is being lauded as a great new feature on Windows 11, because previous versions have been so bad at remembering monitor configurations/setups.

I believe the issue is specifically with M1 macs...

 

[jicon]

I admittedly don't know if there are decent tools out there for Mac management, but I'd presume two of the biggest pushback from businesses are:
-inability to quickly image new Macs, and push only approved updates.
-hardware repair turnaround. We have 2,000 Dell Latitude laptops. If a screen, keyboard, Bluetooth module or battery goes.. within an hour or two Dell has a repair tech dropping off hardware replacements if/when necessary to our doorsteps.

 

[MacN'Dawg]

Professionals just seem to complain more and more about Apple. I see the M1 as the best casual Laptop, the best for the average consumer and people who travel vlog.

Seriously? Apple is the one that put out the Ad trying to woo professionals. Professionals are just reacting to the marketing. I wish Apple was able to completely able to support businesses like mine (manufacturing) but they don't. I hope someday they will.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

There are other types of AppleCare, for enterprise. They handle break-fix like AppleCare+ does. Here’s a handy link for you. HelpDesk, OS Support, and Enterprise

AppleCare Professional

1-800-APLCARE (1-800-275-2273) An AppleCare Professional support specialist can provide integrated expert support for your needs.

www.apple.com

I'm not sure what sort of Enterprise level support we have (we do have it) but I was told by my helpdesk that since I just missed the last pickup from Apple, it's faster for me to take it to Apple than have Apple come to us. I don't know enough about the internal workings of our company to comment farther though.

 

[Akrapovic]

You can do zero touch MDM setup when it's provided by Apple. We've done this with a handful of machines. Most are not zero touch and we use a third party MDM.