When you think of Apple, you don’t often think of enterprise services. Apple Business, recently launched by the premium(ish, these days) hardware maker, promises just that.
The new platform launches on 16 April this year. When it does, it should let users “manage [their] organisation’s devices, apps, and accounts. After that, it gets drearily technical. That’s why your company pays someone else to deal with this sort of thing. You don’t think network and IT administrators are paid for fiddling with the easy stuff, do you?
The Apple Business End
Much like Microsoft’s raft of corporate services, Apple’s new platform assumes there are several of the company’s devices and software packages across a business network. Mobile device management, administration of user accounts (including purchasing more iCloud storage on a per-account basis), and role assignment for those on the network are possible. Much of this already was, but Apple Business pops it into a central location for easiler management.
It’s not all for users and the smart fellows ensuring they can access the office network, though. Apple is also punting its Ads on Maps package, which will see businesses giving the company money for “a fully automated experience of creating ads through Apple Business in a few simple steps.” This feature only starts at an unspecified later date and will launch for the US and Canada first.
Features from the company’s higher-tier platform, Apple Business Connect, are coming across to this new location. One of these is brand management across Apple’s apps and services. If you need to tweak branding, icons, or add data to how Apple presents your company to the world, those will all be options.
Perhaps the best bit: When Apple Business launches on 14 April “in the U.S. and 200+ countries and regions,” it’ll be entirely free to use. This applies to new and current users of the company’s other business-focused products and services. It might be a handy time to drop that side hustle onto Apple’s radar, so all those lovely iPhone users with disposable income know how to give you money for goods and services.
