Apple @ Work is exclusively brought to you by Mosyle, the only Apple Unified Platform. Mosyle is the only solution that integrates in a single professional grade platform all the solutions necessary to seamlessly and automatically deploy, manage, and protect Apple devices at work. Over 45,000 organizations trust Mosyle to make millions of Apple devices work ready with no effort and at an affordable cost. Request your EXTENDED TRIAL today and understand why Mosyle is everything you need to work with Apple.

Every now and then, I have to step outside my usual ecosystem to deploy a Windows PC for a specific role/task. I recently had to set up a new Dell laptop, and the entire experience was a harsh reminder of how good we have it in the Apple IT world. Deploying this new PC made me appreciate everything Apple has built into macOS and the entire setup process.

About Apple @ Work: Bradley Chambers has been an Apple IT admin since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing firewalls, switches, a mobile device management system, enterprise grade WiFi, 1000s of Macs, and 1000s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple IT managers deploy Apple devices, build networks to support them, train users, share stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for IT departments.

Local logins are broken on Windows 11

Google is the absolute backbone of my identity system. Because I have so few PCs in my active inventory, I really wanted to set this new machine up with a simple local login. If you have recently deployed Windows, you know this is practically impossible with some workarounds. The setup assistant fights you at every single step, hiding the local account options behind the command line in a desperate attempt to force a Microsoft account login, either personal or enterprise. There are some known workarounds that seem to work for a while, etc.

I’ve read all the reasons Microsoft is doing this in terms of security of unlocking your computer, etc, but at no point does Apple essentially force you to log in to iCloud to use a Mac. They ask, but they make it easy to decline.

A fragmented update process

Once I finally got to the desktop, the update process was incredibly broken. When I pull a new Mac out of the box, Apple system updates are seamless and generally done in one go. The operating system and firmware are handled in one unified place. On this laptop, Dell provides its own firmware updater for hardware, while Windows updates are pushed through a completely separate settings panel. It is overly confusing, the entire mechanism feels brittle, and it takes absolutely forever to finish.

A LinkedIn app, really?

Then there is the sheer amount of junk Windows still brings into the ecosystem. This is a machine meant for business, yet the Start menu is immediately cluttered with the built-in Xbox app, a LinkedIn “app”, and a distracting news feed right on the taskbar. macOS gives IT a clean slate that respects the user and the organization. About the only thing Apple does today is put a weather widget on the desktop that is easy to turn off.

Wrap up

We complain about the quirks and bugs of Apple Business Manager and device management vendors from time to time, but we truly have a superior experience. Apple allows us to hand a sealed box to an employee, have them connect to the internet, and securely enroll the device into our exact specifications without installing third-party apps or games by default. There’s no “junk” on the default macOS build.

Stepping back into the PC world was all the proof I needed that Apple is on the right path. I know that if you’re deploying the number of PCs that I do Macs, then you’d built a better process that was more scalable, but on the flipside, if you deploy thousands of PCs and only a handful of Macs (even unmanaged), it’s not near the hassle that Windows 11 is today.

Apple @ Work is exclusively brought to you by Mosyle, the only Apple Unified Platform. Mosyle is the only solution that integrates in a single professional grade platform all the solutions necessary to seamlessly and automatically deploy, manage, and protect Apple devices at work. Over 45,000 organizations trust Mosyle to make millions of Apple devices work ready with no effort and at an affordable cost. Request your EXTENDED TRIAL today and understand why Mosyle is everything you need to work with Apple.