With WWDC just around the corner (4 days in fact), the general consensus seems to be that most of the announcements during the keynote will be consumer focussed. Therefore, we thought it was only right to create our own WWDC wish list for the enterprise.
Russell Harris – Apple Master IT Trainer
- iBeacon support in OS X. Could be useful for laptop users in a corporate environment to receive notifications when they enter a meeting room or hot-desk to a specific location.
- Bring back Snow Leopard’s Tiered/Limited Administration feature. Mac OS X 10.6 had a feature within Server Admin to allow a non-admin user on the server to ‘Administer’ or ‘Monitor’ a single service or a collection of services. This was removed with OS X 10.7 Lion with the introduction of the server.app. This was a useful feature to perhaps allow a junior tech the ability to configure or monitor a single service but not the entire server. Or, to allow a head of department to be able to monitor a service used by their department but without any ability to modify that service.
- Admin Webpage for Server.app configuration. Instead of using the Server.app remotely from an admin station, it would be useful to have an https webpage you could authenticate to for certain server changes.
- Expand on the Time Machine Service’s capabilities, to make this much more than a home user/small business backup solution. For example perhaps allow admins to be able to restore items from a backup to a client from the server without having to use the client’s Time Machine interface. Or allow more granular configuration of what is and what isnt backed up and how often.
David Acland – Technical Director
Cloud accessible Time Capsules – This would help out sites that use Time Capsules so they can access their backups from other locations.
AD integration for the DEP program – So the Mac can allow the user to login with their AD credentials right out of the box.
Cheryl Lancley – Training Operations Manager
I would like to see the release of iOS certifications from Apple. This is something we get asked for all the time by our delegates who would like a certification to complement their iOS development and iOS IT training with us. Fingers crossed for 2014/15!
Darren Wallace – Senior Mac Consultant
I have an extensive list, so my top 5 are:
- Have the DEP available over here in Europe.
- Merge software update services and caching services into one. This would be a tweak-able service.
- Adding the ability to replicate/cluster Apple Profile Manager. Like you used to be able to do with Open Directory/MCXs.
- Give the Apple Remote Desktop some TLC.
- Return the ‘once’, ‘often’, ‘always’, options into Profile Manager that we used to be able to use with MCXs.
Richard Mallion – IT Director
As well as what’s on my iOS 8 wish list, I also have the following to add:
- A way of accessing features that currently require the device to be supervised. For example disabling activation lock.
- An easier way to unlock a corporate phone, for example if the user has the phone as activation lock and the user has left without leaving their credentials.
- API’s for SIRI and TouchID.
- Another way (more open way) to supervise the tool rather than using Apple Configurator. Over the air would be nice.
- Using iBeacon for an auto configuration solution.
- Better management options for AppleIDs. For instance the ability to merge existing accounts. Or have two accounts linked, but one clearly marked as for work and the other for home.
- The ability to set a default app for a specific task.
We want to hear what you want, so please feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments below…
Don’t forget your can watch the keynote live with us in London, on Monday.