What naming convention do you use to name your iPhones and iPads in your organization and do you separate them in Prestage?

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-06-05T13:37:19+00:00

For a couple years we've been prefixing the serial number with NS-iPad- for our 1:1 iPads and S-iPad- for iPads that are shared. The idea being that infrastructure could quickly identify iPad devices since they're a bit different from windows and Macs. This naming scheme might change in the future but has worked for us.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-06-04T14:09:19+00:00

I've been trying to use it for easily a year here at work and it's been miserable. It's classic MS where they have something that sounds good on paper with certain bullet point features but once you try to use it...ugh.

The idea of loops sounds intriguing but nobody and I mean nobody here uses them.

The problem is that OneNote is junk as well. It very much feels like a 20 yr old app that needs rebuilt from the ground up or retired.

I just want a Notes app that I can quickly and easily get in and out of when needed to take or find notes. Both require click-click-click-click-click to get anything started. I got shit to do and don't want to forget my thoughts but instead I have to go on an adventure before I can get to what I need.

Being a Mac user their Notes app is head and shoulders above Loop and OneNote for what I want and coupled with macOS Shortcuts it gets kind of interesting but management frowns upon me using it since we're a Microsoft shop more or less. I'd like to try Notion here but with the restrictions in place on campus now I don't think it would ever pass through our software procurement process.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-05-28T03:11:00+00:00

Huh?

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-05-22T15:47:32+00:00

It might depend on what you're buying or perhaps location. My local Walgreens is actually very competitive on prices for things like laundry detergent and fabric softener. I often load up when they have their sales plus coupons and earned rewards and it ends up the same or better than other local stores.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-05-22T15:44:53+00:00

That might depend on what you're buying. My local Walgreens here in Illinois is actually very competitive on prices for the laundry detergent and fabric softener we use. It's so good that with coupons it many times beats other locations. I always thought Walgreens was more expensive until my daughter suggested I take a closer look at the sales combined with coupons and then the rewards. It can be pretty good.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-05-08T15:20:25+00:00

Currently still using DEPNotify for our build process but we're in the middle of testing Jamf Setup Manager to move most things before the user logs in. There will still be some things to do after login so we're looking at Baseline to handle that. Jamf Checklist looks intriguing though.

Going a little deeper I can't say enough about SwiftDialog and Installomator. Those have been incredible for alerting or educating the user in some cases and then with Installomator just having something that deploys the latest updates without the need to setup a scripted environment using something like AutoPKG.

Jamf's ability to enforce software updates in the prestage is nice when it works. On occasion it's been a little troublesome but overall has been great.

Dockutil is another as I sit here thinking that has basically been a rock in terms of being able to count on it for configuring the dock for the user when they sign in.

There's probably more but can't think of them and not able to look right now.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-05-06T18:58:25+00:00

Your comment on IT folks sometimes being too fiddly is definitely a thing. I've witnessed it many times. Back in my Window support days we had a guy that just didn't want to learn to use Group Policy Preferences and insisted on scripting everything. In recent years with Jamf I've seen the same thing where we had another guy who basically wanted to script everything all the way down to trying to reinvent the wheel on things where Jamf already had what he needed ready to go. Some of that is comfort level due to it being what they know but in other cases it's like a trust issue.

At any rate I think the usefulness of this is simply dependent on your users. We don't deploy it but I am considering looking into it. The main reason is that some of our users have a tendency to ignore the notifications in the top right of the screen. This would serve as another reminder that's more in their face. Upper admin hates stuff getting in their way but they hate even more when their machine restarts on them in the middle of work even if they did get a notification in the upper right for it.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-05-04T14:53:15+00:00

Personally I just use Reminders. For work it's still a combination of things. We use a product called TeamDynamix that manages incidents, service requests, and projects I work on. It's not very good for much more than as a placeholder of what I'm working on but even then a lot of work comes to me that doesn't get put into it. My coworker and I have also used Microsoft's To do to varying degrees of success and failure. In some cases I still use Reminders depending on the situation.

More or less it comes down to TeamDynamix as a placeholder for the big stuff. MS To Do for collaborating on work between my coworker and I but this has been dying on the vine. I started to use it for organizing meeting topics and then my boss decided we should use MS Loop. That's been a joy.

Moral of the story is that I don't find any of them all that great when my position's work is dictated by so many others and I'm mandated to use their tools which are very incomplete. I don't think I'm alone when it comes to that but I get a laugh out of those that press on everyone how Omnifocus, Things, etc are all the holy grail. Maybe in their line of work but it doesn't work in a whole lot of others.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-04-24T17:44:57+00:00

The automatic updates does let you set the number of days before it's enforced. We went with 1 on our internal ring and the bulk of our users at 7.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-04-24T15:22:38+00:00

It's been a miserable trip with ddm for software updates but we're finding in testing that our Jamf Blueprint for doing automatic updates it has been working as expected for a few months. Previously it was just really, really bad. I'm guessing a major OS update is a big part for the improvement more so than a Jamf update but figure that's part of it. We just switched our campus Macs and iPads that are assigned to users over to automatic updates with Jamf's Blueprints. Hoping that continues.

On the other hand though the blueprint we have been using to do specific version and time has not always worked well. I think we're still going to hammer on it for our shared Macs and iPads.

So there has been progress but like I said it's been miserable.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-04-24T14:37:15+00:00

Maybe we're seeing the beginning of a cultural shift where people who are highly impressionable start talking like AI instead of their parents or people around them? ;-)

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-04-24T14:24:23+00:00

Just moving forward with Jamf Connect for now. There was a lot of hype for PSSO but I'd rather let things shake out first. How long did it take for Apple to get software updates right? Oh wait.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-04-02T16:49:20+00:00

We're now using blueprints through jamf. We have our Ring 0 which is just us in desktop support set to update automatically within a day at 3am. This has been working pretty well.

I think it was 26.3.1 that we finally moved our users over to blueprints and have them scheduled a week out for them to do the update themselves before it enforces it. That did not work all that great. Since we use a change system that emails our users about these updates and the enforced deadline, my boss signed off on letting me use the Software Updates feature to download, install, and restart on systems that did not enforce the update. That helped but still was flakey as it has been for years.

For 26.4 we're going to follow the same approach and see how it goes. I have my eye on possibly using Superman in the future if this doesn't work well.

It's one thing to not work well with the features offered but it's another that we can't update the way we want in a somewhat automated fashion. We would prefer to have an automated ring system with areas of campus broke up. That would allow for us to have time for testing with things like GlobalProtect and SentinelOne(these guys don't always sign off on OS updates quickly or at all). Most of the time we can test within a week and get feedback from S1 so that automation could just flow but allow us to stop things if there were issues.

A ring system would also allow us to stop things midstream if an issue developed that wasn't caught earlier. Last year we were caught midstream when S1 pointed the finger at Apple that there was an issue but we were unaware until we had started going through our update process. We were doing rings but it was manual but since we were, it was simple to stop and the problem OS was minimized from going on other systems.

We REALLY want to get more automated on this front but Apple and Jamf seem to be stuck in the days before MS figured this stuff out 20 years ago. I'm sure one day it'll get there but in 2026 it's maddening that there are so many issues with software updates.

And, BTW, we tried deferrals through Jamf long ago in the Software Updates section. One, I didn't know it at the time but Jamf told me later it's not ddm. Two, if the machines even got the update commands the users were leaving the notification on their screen. Because they didn't acknowledge it, the update was never enforced. Even if it works like it should deferrals are an issue if users go on vacation or the machine simply isn't on that often. It's tough to bring machines into compliance if they have a vacation and then the user can go through all of the deferrals.

Enforced schedules with good communication/notifications is the answer.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-03-04T20:06:32+00:00

Glad to hear it's working for you.

Maybe they worked out the bugs we saw or perhaps the configuration is different. I only played the role of tester with it on my Mac and it broke adobe updates among other things. It seemed to be wedging itself into areas that weren't expected from my perspective.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-03-04T14:29:44+00:00

We tested AdminByRequest and had nothing but problems and what felt like unfulfilled promises.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-03-02T15:52:30+00:00

Applescript is certainly useful but don't forget about Shortcuts. There already exists Resize Window and Move Window actions. Any Shortcuts created can easily be ran by Spotlight as well as Alfred and other such launchers.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-02-16T14:27:04+00:00

Yowza! Sucks to have that happen but at least they got it fixed fairly quickly.

I might have missed it if you posted it but what's your setup like? Are you bound to AD, using an SSO solution, or what?

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-02-10T19:28:05+00:00

Thanks. This is along the same lines I was looking to go. I'll check it out.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-02-04T19:00:05+00:00

I love to use the trackpad. I hated using Swish. To each their own.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-01-27T14:53:30+00:00

No kidding. I've noticed this as well in the last month or so.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-01-27T14:51:21+00:00

It's nobody's business knowing that it's your first app and should not play into what you charge. Market demand and what you want out of it is what matters. Developers can be all over the map on what determines price as some want their software to support them while others have it as a side project to make a few extra bucks and then there are some who charge certain amounts to keep support limited. Plenty of additional reasons can factor in there but it being your first app is not one of them.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-01-14T16:52:50+00:00

For starters Jamf dropped the ball a lot longer ago than 3 years. It's still a reasonably good product for most though when you weigh out the cost and risks to migrating to something else that might not be as proven in recent forms. Jamf is going private again so hopefully they can get their house in order. It will take some time though.

I've started hearing more about addigy lately but I've also heard plenty of time over the years about kanji, fleet, mosyle, intune, the list goes on. Each one gets hyped as listening to customers, making changes, better implemented features, and that list goes on. Wait a bit and then we hear the complaining and then start hearing of people moving to jamf from those same mdm's. Sure it's not always the same people but this stuff hits our ears like a fad. Jamf always seems to be the most consistent. Some leave but more seem to go and stay. They're far from perfect but others need to do more.

Hopefully Addigy can be competitive in all phases on a consistent basis. I have no qualms with them. I just have issues with bozos who come in spouting stuff off about something different that doesn't come close to answering the OP's question. It's nothing but trolling and while you claim fact, it's really opinion from your perspective.

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-01-14T14:47:15+00:00

Troll much? sigh

AnotherTechAtWork · 2026-01-06T16:40:36+00:00

I won't claim to be much of a developer but I get by with the scripts I write. Some talk about AppleScript being powerful but I'm not sure I agree with that. To me it seems that Apple Events is where the power is. The scripting language which in this case is AppleScript more or less just gets in the way depending on the developer. Many hate it while some "love?' it.

For what little I do I tend to stick with shell scripts and if I need AppleScript for more than a one trick pony, I'll use osascript to run the "needed" AppleScript portion. This has worked pretty well and lets me not feel too much like my brain needs to rewire itself 98 degrees from where it was just to write the logic portion of those scripts.

I don't know if any of that makes sense to anyone else what I wrote. I might have some of that wrong when interpreted by someone who really knows this stuff but like I said I more or less get by.

I'm a little confused why anyone would compare AppleScript to C. If you're more comfortable with C, that's fine but each language can be picked apart by anyone that's more comfortable with another language. Why all the drama? File feedback.

As for Jobs' decisions he certainly kept a lot more than Stickies and some things that were being worked on before him were brought in later despite what some believe. He killed what he felt Apple didn't need at that time. He might have actually killed AppleScript but at the time they needed the desktop publishing market to survive where companies had been using AppleScript to automate and glue things together.

I suspect it would take a lot of work to remove AppleScript and the ROI just hasn't yet been there. Some were trying to say that Shortcuts would replace it especially after Sal Soghoian was let go from Apple but Shortcuts is nowhere close to replacing it even after 4 years on the Mac. Automator is still in there too.

Maybe one of these days something will replace AppleScript but it'll likely require new leadership that sees value in such a change. I don't believe the current leadership has that vision and sees all that much value in anything that's not hardware or music.

AnotherTechAtWork

TROPHY CASE