WWDC
Let’s start with the one everyone knows about, which is Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) held every June. The event has become an Apple keynote event in its own right, and while most of the content is intended for Apple developers, it always includes at least a few sessions for IT pros; the exact number varies each year, but the “What’s New in Managing Apple Devices” is a perennial option. Some years there are several others, such as when Apple unveiled declarative device management or sign in with Apple at work, or when the company opened up about how to use Managed Apple accounts in your organization.
The topics vary, but they’re almost always a must-have option to explore every year.
- Apple Developer Resources. Apple makes loads of additional information available to its developer community. Again, much of it isn’t strictly IT-focused, but there are a surprising number of useful references — if you’re willing to do some digging. These include:
- Device Management — This is the resource on how to manage Apple devices. There are overviews and detailed descriptions of mobile device management (MDM) payloads and everything in between.
- What’s new in Apple platform deployment — As the name suggests, this is also a must-know resource, because it covers the basic information about how to deploy Apple devices at scale across all of the company’s device lineup.
- ManagedAppDistribution — This is used for managing apps once you’ve enrolled and begun to deploy apps across your fleet.
- AppleSeed for IT — This is where you set up and manage the testing of Apple’s beta programs within your organization. I’ve more than once noted how partnering with adventurous employees can help you more effectively test and plan for upcoming releases; this is the place to get started.
- Apple Business Essential user guide — For small or medium-size businesses (SMBs), Apple offers an in-house device management solution called Apple Business Essentials. For IT pros new to Apple devices, this is a great starting place, regardless of the size of your organization and it serves as a stepping stone to Apple Business Manager, which all larger organizations and MDM solutions will require.
- Apple Training — Apple doesn’t offer the breadth of IT training and certification it once did (and that other enterprise players continue to offer). Regardless, the company does offer significant training resources. These break down into developer training (as a class with no certification and intended for budding developers, enterprise or not) and IT training. For IT training there are four categories, only two of which offer certifications. The first two — device support and deployment training — are the ones for which Apple provides study materials and related exercises as well as a certification exam that can be proctored online. The other two — Mac Security Compliance and Apple Business Essentials — are incredibly useful courses (the latter is especially important for SMBs) but don’t come with a certification exam or credential attached.
- Apple developer documentation and support — Again, Apple’s developer documentation is well worth studying, but its developer support forums (and support forums) focused on the enterprise community are also important resources.
MDM and cloud vendor resources
Although Apple provides incredible device and user management capabilities across its platforms, implementing them largely requires working with one or more MDM vendors — including JAMF, Kandji, Microsoft, VMWare, Fleet, JumpCloud and SimpleMDM, to name a few.
