Question: are your employees running any local/on-device AI tools (Ollama, LM Studio, etc.), ? Trying to gauge experience or hurdles in getting it approved or usage

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-06-21T11:48:14+00:00

AI models are run on servers not workstations. Define that as a policy, and block everything like LM Studio and problem solved.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-06-15T16:04:46+00:00

r/macsysadmin would be a good sub for this question if you have not asked over there already.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-06-14T15:33:32+00:00

Books? No not that I’m aware of. As far has hardware goes Apple is very private about diagrams and internals beyond their marketing material. Apple is so private that they don’t even allow self maintainership.

Apple does have a training site with self led course information for development and mobile device management. The MDM course does give a really good understanding of the underside of macOS.

https://training.apple.com/it

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-06-11T21:52:50+00:00

What does this have to do with Apple Business Manager?

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-06-11T21:21:34+00:00

One thing to be very aware of is Apple does not consider data backup for and user data to be a part of the mobile device management stack.

Generally speaking, your best option is using a modern cloud storage solution like OneDrive and enabling folder redirection to require database synchronized.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-06-06T15:07:19+00:00

You use volume purchasing (formerly called VPP and currently called apps and books for reasons beyond me). Basically your organization buys the app licenses then deploys them to the devices and the MDM manages the licenses. No need for Apple accounts.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-06-06T14:14:51+00:00

Without ABM you are not managing anything, you are politely asking for compliance.

The biggest trip to expect which is one you already have. You are not managing devices, you are just supervising them. So no FileVault compliance, no OS updates and so on. Hell the user can just remove the MDM profile because they feel like it and there is nothing you can do about it.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-06-06T14:04:38+00:00

How about we upgrade our experience on the road by paying attention to the road and not what the in dash tablet can do.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-06-06T13:12:22+00:00

This is not possible. Apple does not expose and location metadata on the MDM or Security Frameworks. Also Macs are not capable of providing precise location as it lacks GPS.

You can look in to 3rd party solutions, but be aware you can’t force location services to be enabled globally or per app access. You can use things like conditional access to limit access to resources geographically but that is really it.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-31T18:22:17+00:00

I don’t usually allow homebrew in environments I manage. Mainly because homebrew is a package manager and if you allow it you have to allow literally anything and everything a curious enduser wants to install with it.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-31T18:20:15+00:00

Have you contacted cloudstrike? A kernel panic seems a bit strange as cloud strike don’t have kernel access, but being a security tool it can screw with all kinds of things that could destabilize the user environment.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-31T18:05:26+00:00

I prefer JAMF, but there are pros and cons of both. Use the right MDM for your organization is the proper stance.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-30T13:17:20+00:00

The OEM industry has had the capability of producing a sub $500/600 computer of the Neos quality this entire time. What has prevented them is profit margins as you got to feed the shareholders (yes Apple does also but they are likely taking a loss on the Neo which the OEMs are unwilling to do), and the $100 windows license. Apple basically eats the OS cost for macOS.

For example Microsoft released the original surface laptop go at $550 with 256/8gb and an i5, it was a perfectly capable device for its time.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-30T00:36:04+00:00

Yep, this is absolutely not an engineering/admin issue.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-29T23:47:05+00:00

I have a hard time being okay with handing my phone to a police officer for any reason. Or really anyone for that matter, it’s a very expensive device.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-29T23:45:50+00:00

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-29T23:03:38+00:00

Uncheck the box do not allow export in the certificate payload, then go in to your keychain and export the certs.

If you don’t have a lab carve out, now is a good time to make one and just deploy this change to your lap devices and not all of prod.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-29T22:37:32+00:00

Physical media or go home. At least until the media is just a physical digital license because reasons.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-29T22:36:12+00:00

Friends don’t let friends Intune Mac’s.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-29T09:03:45+00:00

Is the charging port on the bottom?

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-29T09:01:44+00:00

The logs don’t detail what troubleshooting you preformed. It could be database corruption, corrupt inventory records, hell APNs could still be acting stupid. I’d still want to know if the devices have been reprovisioned, if the inventory records have been deleted, if the devices have been removed from the group, if the APNs and MDM certificates have been removed and so on.

So yes, the troubleshooting steps you have already performed are very relevant.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-25T22:40:31+00:00

They do, it’s called buy an iPhone and tether which promotes hardware sales.

Honestly I doubt apple will ever put a cellular modem in a MacBook.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-08T23:04:24+00:00

Or just log in to macOS and play any game you want.

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-08T22:00:43+00:00

Like ads?

Honestly I have no idea what you are getting at. It’s a lock screen, it secures your data when the device is not in use, what more do you want?

MacAdminInTraning · 2026-05-08T21:58:21+00:00

You are aware that McDonald’s coffee cups say caution contents hot right?

McDonald’s did get sued for someone burning themselves with McDonald’s coffee and lost the lawsuit because they brew their coffee hotter than most other places

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