The first step was "Domain Lock/Capture" which takes over all Apple accounts for a specific domain.

I've never had a worse experience from Apple.

The process is buggy, filled with foot-guns and dead ends. It expects huge amounts of work from users who have had their account for more than a few weeks and are expected to remove a lot of their personal data before their account can be migrated (e.g. do you know how to delete all your Health data?). The process is also impossible to cancel.

Phone support was par for the course, e.g. tickets escalated to the abyss, suggestions to restore workstations to factory settings, etc.

Be warned.

Wait, there's more!

> In addition, customers can now set up business email, calendar, and directory services with their own domain name for seamless and elevated communication and collaboration.

Wow, a custom domain name!

> Apple Business enables automated Managed Apple Account creation for new employees through integration with an identity service provider, including Google Workspace, Microsoft Entra ID, and more.

In the year 2026, I can finally start logging into my corporate laptop with my corporate ID. Wow!

Them stapling on the announcement of advertisements for Apple Maps is especially hilarious. I don't think the people managing fleet devices at a corporation are the same people who are interested in setting their location ad strategy. But Apple saw they had two vaguely business-y things at the same time and thought they would really hit it off together.

I have to imagine that the Apple Neo is heavily aimed at volume sales - low level white collar workers and education. These features seem to be hastily assembled to meet the needs of these potential buyers.

As a lot of people on this thread have pointed out, Apple's Business Manager needs a lot of improvements. ("Bring your own device" support is terrible, for example. Changing business names requires a perilous migration step. Support reps don't have the tools to fix serious issues.)

If Apple Business were a real revenue source, if they charged luxury prices for a luxurious business support experience, they could pay for developers to fix their stuff.

Instead, Apple Business is a free side hustle for Apple, a hobby. But they're proposing to control your entire domain, to Domain Lock all Apple accounts for your domain, to put your businesses's life in their hands, for "free."

Don't fall for it.

New businesses under 50 employees are going to eat this up like there's no tomorrow.

I'd be scared if I was certain Redmond corporation who makes their money on 365 and Intune.

Not possible.

Ok, let's ask support what to do: the only thing we can do is create a new account, get the approval, etc. and then ask for a migration that may or may not be approved and may or may not end succesfully.

In the end we keep receiving the bills in the old name, then change it manually or append a note.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/francisco-partners-completes-...

I lamented how Apple hardware is now the same price as the other vendors, yet best in class for quality and how Dell and HP are hiking their laptop pricing lately due to supply shortages. Especially on their pro lines, which have been quoted to me as twice the price of equivalent MacBooks.

I mentioned Apple would be silly not to make a further global move into MDM and email hosting territory. Particularly for small business owners: 1-10 person shops and retail who use mostly cloud based POS applications.

Others responded at the time, and I agreed with it, that it seems unlikely Apple would make a business move. After all, they don’t have much history with business, or perhaps they did but they didn’t like the market and wrapped it up.

Well, with this announcement, and with the confirmation that *Apple native email hosting is coming* I am very excited to trial it when it lands in April. Over the last few months, our small business has already cracked it and downgraded most of our email hosting to Exchange Plan 1 and dropped the desktop Office suite in favour of Pages and Numbers, which are both free and absolutely working fine. In fact, I’ve found Pages to be less laggy and more stable than Word in very large documents such as 300+ pages. The logical next step for us is to fully drop our third-party MDM and review whether Apple’s native MDM, email and identity systems are adequate for transition. We have saved thousands of $$ so far and stand to save a lot more!

[1]: https://www.jamf.com/

Since I have no employees and my devices are under control, I guess it's not for me, whatever it is.

> https://business.apple.com/preview

> https://www.apple.com/business/essentials/

I've worked with two agencies now that used only Macs across the business and had a really fun time signing in to and integrating 58 Google services every time they hired someone new.

It's possible people may continue to use Google Workspaces in these places, however, the fact that there was never even an Apple option was always wild to me.

Apple Business Essentials with AppleCare+ for 3 devices and 200GB iCloud storage is $19.99 per user/mo. That's the same price as AppleCare One alone.

It has always been Apple > Users > Partners.

There's a reason why Microsoft is still the king of enterprises. Anybody getting involved with this with Apple will deserve everything thats coming their way

Dell, Lenovo, HP will gladly send a technician to your house, and their NBD warranties cost about the same as Applecare. And they don't care if you're an enterprise or an individual buying one measly laptop.

Burying the lede about ADs coming to everything in this announcement. Seems like the contract most people implicitly signed when choosing Apple just broke.

It's kind of insane the advantage Apple Silicon has brought along with the brutal price competition PC sales. The only question I have is whether this touches the sides. That is to say - they sell a billion iPhones, is the consumer laptop and low end business sales enough to bump the numbers. They're thinner margins, and that market has to some extent been on a downward trend (which is why the stock market is running to data centres where the compute actually happens).

Yes sure you can use a different tool for any of these, defaults dominate for the same reason Google pays ~15 billion to be the default search engine on iPhones.

> Apple Business Essentials, Apple Business Manager, and Apple Business Connect will no longer be available once Apple Business launches. Business Essentials customers will no longer be charged their monthly service fee for device management after April 14. Existing Business Connect data — including claimed locations, place card information, photos, organization information, account details, and more — will automatically migrate to Apple Business at launch.

I don't get it. Is this free? If so this is insane value compared to everything else.

Does this mean — Always Free or Introductory Free for now?

I'm glad Apple announced their own plans to enshittify before I got my hopes up.

It's happening. The end is near !!!

My first thought from that heading was “my company will know where I am at all times”. Though that was not the point thankfully.

I’m happy to be corrected if I missed anything, or entertain alternate conclusions. I’m no expert.

They're basically planning to enter the market where Microsoft has dominant position.

Fuck you Apple.

I remember this!

I am sure "BUT BUSINESS AND MONEY" is the answer but that feels like a cop out in this case.

It's 2026 and you have to delete contacts one at a time, or press and slide to select a group of them until you reach one you don't want to delete, delete that group, then start over again.

Other basic functionality I'd like includes being able to remote control an iPhone from a device which isn't a modern Mac, and being able to plug in an iPhone and use it as a removable storage device.

Does this mean that I'm able to enroll two Apple Accounts on an iPhone at once? Or does Apple actually think that I'm gonna be storing personal data, such as my health data, on a company device with a company-managed Apple Account?

At the moment I just have two iPhones: my personal iPhone that has my data and is connected to my Apple Watch, and my work iPhone, which sits on a desk and does nothing. The separate Apple Account on the work one means that I can't connect it to an Apple Watch and I can't download my apps on it, so you either can't accumulate any personal data on the device, or you need to submit all of your personal data to your employer's Apple Account. Including whatever health data your Apple Watch produces.

You may, and probably will, call me a fanboy or argue that reminiscing the good old times when Apple had 4 products are long gone and we live in a different world now. That is true, we live in a different world and focusing on 4 products wouldn't suffice for Apple to survive.

And now again, you may, and probably will, think that I'm burying my head in sand and ignoring many aspects a business needs to consider in order to survive, just to focus on the ones I like or am nostalgic about.

But there is something very special in this simplicity communicated by Steve in the speech. There is something that makes me want to buy a product when I see clearly what it is I'm buying.

On the other hand, there is something very repulsive when I read phrases like: seamless, streamline, gain valuable insights, build trust, in a product announcement.

Don't get me wrong, I am indifferent about Apple Business, probably won't use it and it won't harm me either. My observation is just a coincidence having heard the speech and having read the announcement here. Link to video: https://youtu.be/EoM2Y2KO6kU?si=0DybhDUiqKsWG_Nz

The enshittification knows no bounds.

It used to be necessary to use a slew of dodgy providers like Jama, with is 2000 website (and why would I trust any small company with all my enterprise data). ABM didn’t provide the MDM part and that was most annoying. It seems normal to integrate account management and MDM, so I’d love to use it.

That ABM is full of bugs, the Apple team incompetent, and D&B being Dumb and Dunber is another question.

Absolutely do not touch this product with a ten-foot pole.

if they can also monetize - location api - via Apple Maps + business messaging that's easily 3+ Billion of revenue yearly.