How Apple's Culture of Secrecy Poses Challenges for the New Work From Home Reality

[TriBruin]

It's a shame that Apple has completely ceded the enterprise space to these other companies.

Apple has never been able to do Enterprise level. They create personal devices, not enterprise level. Look how long it took them to get even basic cloud file sharing services working. Other companies, including Box.net, Dropdox, and even Microsoft, have been doing it for year.

It has only been in the past few years that Apple is finally recognizing that Enterprises want to use Apple devices (or, more accurately, enterprise employees want to use Apple devices). To Apple's credit, instead of trying to build from scratch, they have worked with Enterprise partners, like Cisco, IBM, Jamf, etc. to create partnerships. This frees Apple to focus on their core businesses.

 

[IPPlanMan]

Apple has never been able to do Enterprise level. They create personal devices, not enterprise level. Look how long it took them to get even basic cloud file sharing services working. Other companies, including Box.net, Dropdox, and even Microsoft, have been doing it for year.

It has only been in the past few years that Apple is finally recognizing that Enterprises want to use Apple devices (or, more accurately, enterprise employees want to use Apple devices). To Apple's credit, instead of trying to build from scratch, they have worked with Enterprise partners, like Cisco, IBM, Jamf, etc. to create partnerships. This frees Apple to focus on their core businesses.

Apple should have acquired Box or Dropbox and rebranded it if necessary.

It's what they did for Beats Music, which became Apple Music. It's the magic formula when Apple can't do it themselves.

They could have called it Apple Box. What a missed opportunity.

 

[hans1972]

Now our whole org has gone O365 and thus making working in an (well, mine) enterprise with a Mac even more PITA.

How can it be more difficult?
Almost everything in Office 365 is available for the Mac as an application or on the web.

Applications for the Mac: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Skype for Busiessn, Teams, OneDrive
Other MS applications for the Mac: Remote Desktop, Visual Studio, Edge, PowerShell

 

[Lucifer666]

My goodness! "Apple relying on grainy photos of new hardware designs instead of hands on". lol

 

[CarlJ]

Time for corporate spies to start chatting up the kids of high-placed Apple employees, to get info on what mommy/daddy is working on.

 

[MarkAtl]

agreed. After years on Macs, two apps I still can't reliably replicate, MS Visio and Project. I've tried a couple of independents and they're fragmented at best. The Omni group stuff is just OK (but expensive) and workflow isn't quite the same - especially when collaborating with Windows users. Now our whole org has gone O365 and thus making working in an (well, mine) enterprise with a Mac even more PITA.

I’ve found the same with Omni but run Windows in Parallels just for Project and Visio.

 

[SuperCachetes]

Maybe Apple should give up this fanciful smartphone thing and just go back to making desktop computers.

Except wasn't the whole point of the post you quoted that Apple should stick to consumer products? Like smartphones?

Apple may have been decent at enterprise solutions at one time, but that isn't where the money is at. Lament it all you want, but there are business-class conferencing solutions out there, and just because we all love Apple, it doesn't mean they can make a better one. There is no reason (and very little market, comparatively speaking) that says Apple should cater to the few professionals that pine for an Apple product in this arena.

Its even worse that than. They have ceded to everthing but simple absent minded teenager fads.

So, either there are far more teenagers with money burning holes in their pockets than we thought, or the millions of adults plunking down money for iDevices are absent-minded? Hmmm.

 

[Winni]

Fascinating! I would love to be the fly-on-the-wall, just to see what goes on (inside Apple) someday.

Don't expect too much. After all, it's just another huge corporation, with a lot of corporate nonsense going on -- which comes with the size.

 

[Tech198]

This is why i don't think working from home can possibly be the "new thing"

 

[sarge]

From the article, "...Apple employees have not found it easy to work with Apple's own apps due to their consumer rather than enterprise focus." Absolutely hilarious!

They're finally feeling what we've been saying for years.

That is the $$$ quote, totally agree.
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Apple should have acquired Box or Dropbox and rebranded it if necessary.

It's what they did for Beats Music, which became Apple Music. It's the magic formula when Apple can't do it themselves.

They could have called it Apple Box. What a missed opportunity.

Box sucks. It doesn't maintain formatting and fails as a collaborative workspace.

 

[TTTedP]

How can it be more difficult?
Almost everything in Office 365 is available for the Mac as an application or on the web.

Applications for the Mac: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Skype for Busiessn, Teams, OneDrive
Other MS applications for the Mac: Remote Desktop, Visual Studio, Edge, PowerShell

I like O365. I even prefer Mac versions of Word and Excel over Windows. O365 is getting there but stuff is still disjointed. We use Teams, Sharepoint, Project and Visio online. Take for example editing a shared file, it can be attached in Teams, in Sharepoint or your OneDrive. Then to edit, do you edit in browser, in app or offline? They all have their quirks, especially if you're trying to keep it strictly Mac, and doing it all via Safari.

It's all getting better. And good enough IMO that I stopped with the Parallels Window VM bit (my thinking is if I need to run a Windows VM, I might as well just use a PC.).

I would really just love a better, native MacOS option for Visio and Project. I've tried a lot of 3rd party stuff, Omni, VisualDesigner, Gliphy, Instagantt, etc - and all OK but have their limits. And yeah before you say it "just get PC" - I know, I know.
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I’ve found the same with Omni but run Windows in Parallels just for Project and Visio.

Yeah I was trying to avoid the VM's. Parallels + an O365 subscription is cheaper than using Omni's SW.

Maybe not cheaper in the long run when comparing annual $ vs one time - but if I am going with a SW long term, might as well use the same app everyone else on my team does.

 

[nt5672]

. . . . .
So, either there are far more teenagers with money burning holes in their pockets than we thought, or the millions of adults plunking down money for iDevices are absent-minded? Hmmm.

Every single person I know that that is not a teenager has serious problems with what Apple is rolling out as "Incredible" these days. Sure Apple stuff still kinda works, but for anything serious there are major hiccups, bugs, removed functionality, lack of completeness, etc.

So yeah, a lot of people buy today because Apple devices are still fashionable and are still better than the alternative, but today its not by much and the gap is decreasing fast.

 

[CarlJ]

Apple should have acquired Box or Dropbox and rebranded it if necessary.

The story is that Steve wanted to acquire Dropbox, but the Dropbox folks didn't want to sell.

 

[ingambe]

As if it was not already super hard to work from home ...

 

[MarkC426]

If there really that bothered about employees leaking stuff, put a hold on the new gear.
What’s the rush, so what if the new iPhone or iMac comes out 6 months later than normal.

 

[IPPlanMan]

The story is that Steve wanted to acquire Dropbox, but the Dropbox folks didn't want to sell.

Should have offered them more money.

 

[AnotherOpinion]

Apple invents what it needs to get the jobs done. I will look forward to whatever Enterprise solutions they come up with because they internally need that level of security.

 

[Macaholic868]

A secretive company? Sure in the Jobs era. When is the last time Apple released a product that we didn’t know was coming and didn’t know most of the details of before it was released? I can’t think of one lately. I’d love to see that change.

 

[CarlJ]

A secretive company? Sure in the Jobs era. When is the last time Apple released a product that we didn’t know was coming and didn’t know most of the details of before it was released? I can’t think of one lately. I’d love to see that change.

Did you know the Apple Watch 5 would have Always-on-Display? Can you cite a post, before Apple's presentation, where you stated this?