hawkpride147

An outdoor version (or an indoor/outdoor version) would be awesome. I would love to have a HomePod on my back porch but not have to worry about it with rain and wind and dust and heat and cold.

AppleInsider said:

It's not immediately clear how falling back to a device PIN would be more secure than a properly configured password, however. Most iPhone device PINs are four or six numbers, and currently it takes an extra step to make it longer or alphanumeric.

This is literally the standard for enterprise and DoD security. This is really no different than Okta Verify, Duo, Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, or any of the other true MFA systems.

Apple themselves are still Jamf customers. Eventually, I can see them trying to move into Jamf's space, but Apple's own design has made that hard to do. Sure the MDM framework is written by Apple, but so much is provided by 3rd party MDMs (UI, cloud services, support). Apple can absolutely move into that space, but as someone who manages MDM for Apple devices for a living, I wouldn't give them a glance. Not because they won't do it will (they absolutely will). Not because they won't provide the cloud services (they will). Not because they don't have the ability to support the product (they do). They could beat Mosyle's pricing (cheapest full feature MDM on the market) and I still wouldn't give it a thought. The issue is that moving between MDM platforms is basically impossible. It's hard enough to move devices between Apple Business Manager instances (think mergers/acquisitions). When I was managing 500 devices I would have bolted if I had to change MDMs. Now that I'm managing thousands, it's just not going to happen. Apple knows this. They're targeting the small businesses that don't have anything at all. They're offering something as powerful as Jamf Pro that is supposed to be easier to manage than Jamf now.

They still can't get last year's models out the door in a reasonable time...

mike1 said:

Likely similar thoughts to using a company-issued device. They probably feel they can better manage the software, upgrades and lock it down from unauthorized uses. This way, the IT departments only have to worry about one type of device to support. Imagine the myriad of laptops, desktops, tablets, phones etc. that would exist among families in even a single school district. Then add multiple Operating systems at various levels of updates. It would be a nightmare.

^This. We don't support our users personal devices or networks. To do so would be a nightmare. The number of our staff asking us to support them and the variety of setups in a staff of 200 is absolutely astounding.