Wrapping WWDC 2024: Getting Ready for Apple Major Releases
Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2024 has brought many exciting updates and features to all of Apple’s major platforms. In the keynote, Apple announced macOS 15, iOS 18, iPadOS 18, tvOS 18, and visionOS 2. In addition to showcasing many impressive consumer features as well as the much-anticipated Apple Intelligence, Apple announced important enhancements coming to device management as well as Apple Business Manager (ABM) and Apple School Manager (ASM).
We are currently testing the beta releases in Workspace ONE UEM to ensure backward compatibility with existing features upon software upgrade launch in Q3 2024.
Here are some highlights from the WWDC 2024 announcements.
Apple Intelligence
Apple announced exciting new generative AI features and showed us an incredible demonstration of what’s coming later this year in their new platforms. While still in relatively early stages, we’re assured of at least two things with Apple AI – first, they’ve prioritized more operations on the device itself instead of in the cloud compared to current offerings on the market and second, Apple’s AI will be more privacy-conscious than its competitors. Apple has announced they will be providing device management controls for various Apple Intelligence features when they become generally available.
Apple Business Manager and Apple School Manager Updates
Apple announced some new features and enhancements for Apple Business Manager and Apple School Manager, such as:
Domain Capture and Account Transfer: Organizations can now enforce the creation of Managed Apple Accounts for their domains, capturing personal Apple Accounts that try to use the organization’s domain. Previously this was only possible by integrating with an identity provider (IdP). Users can transfer their existing personal Apple Account to a Managed Apple Account or change their existing email address.
Activation Lock Management: New features allow admins with device management privileges to turn off Activation Lock for organization-owned devices, directly from ABM and ASM.
Support for Apple Watch and Apple Vision Pro: Apple Watch and Apple Vision Pro devices can now be managed within ABM and ASM, allowing the use of the new Activation Lock capabilities and existing Automated Device Enrollment options.
Device Management Updates
As expected, Apple announced new management enhancements for Declarative Device Management, including:
Safari Extensions Management: Apple’s declarative device management (DDM) now supports a new configuration for Safari extensions management on supervised devices. Organizations can control which Safari extensions are allowed, always on, or always off, extending to both standard and Private Browsing modes.
Software Update Management: In addition to the existing Software Update Enforcement configuration, DDM now supports a Software Update Settings configuration. This configuration allows for more granular control over many update-related settings. A list of these settings is available in our Knowledge Base document.
Managed Device Attestation: Attestations will only be issued to devices that meet the following hardware requirements:
- iPhones, iPads, and Apple TVs now require an A11 Bionic chip or later
- Mac computers now require Apple silicon (M1 and later)
macOS Management Enhancements
Apple also announced some macOS-specific management enhancements, like:
Passkey and Security Key Support: Automated Device Enrollment on macOS 15 will now support WebAuthN for web authentication, providing support for security keys and passkeys for enrollment authentication.
Platform Single Sign-On (SSO): Platform SSO has been enhanced with macOS 15 to require IdP authentication when accessing FileVault, the Lock Screen, and the login window. Optional configurations for Touch ID or Apple Watch unlock are also available.
External Storage Management: A new disk management declarative configuration allows managed access to external and network storage and can enforce read-only volume mounting for enhanced data control.
iOS and iPadOS Management Features
New management features are also coming to iSO and iPadOS, such as:
Hiding and Locking Apps: iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 introduce options to require biometric authentication or a passcode to open apps and to hide apps from the Home Screen. MDM will be able to control these features on a per-app basis (managed apps only) or disable them entirely on supervised devices.
eSIM Updates: iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 now support new restrictions for blocking outgoing eSIM transfer and forcing eSIM preservation upon device erasure.
tvOS and visionOS Management
We will also see new management features coming to tvOS and visionOS, like:
tvOS: Enhancements include better management for returning devices to service and identifying AirPlay receivers.
visionOS: visionOS 2.0 brings support for Automated Device Enrollment and new configuration management functionality for Apple Vision Pro. visionOS 2.0 also enhances the Mac virtualization experience by allowing the virtual Mac screen to be significantly wider, almost wrapping around the user when wearing the Vision Pro.
Education-Specific Updates
Apple is enhancing its tools for educators by including the calculator app on iPads, allowing teachers to send assessments by scanning or importing existing documents and scoring performance per question, allowing instructors to create and use unmanaged nearby classes in Classroom, and more.
Summary
This year’s WWDC was loaded with new features and enhancements for the entire range of Apple’s device line-up. We’re looking forward to Apple adding more MDM capabilities throughout the iOS 18 / macOS 15 lifecycles.
Note: This article does not indicate support for any of the above features with Workspace ONE UEM.
Additional Resources:
For a more complete summary of WWDC, check out Getting Ready for Apple Major OS Releases 2024 in our product documentation.
For more information on Apple’s new enterprise features, be sure to check out the full WWDC 24 session What’s new in managing Apple devices.