This is a very very long rant against a decision that seems entirely sensible to me. I specifically would not want any corporate-issued hardware happily chatting away with my personally-owned hardware, and I would encourage others to similarly keep their home and work life separate. If having an iPad (or a Vision Pro) would be useful for work, then their employer should issue one.
Employers could be free to restrict use of such devices via MDM policy if they wanted.
Also, how many of us have purchased keyboards, mice, displays, headphones, etc with our own money that we happily use with employer owned computers because it’s safe to do so?
iPad is not in the list of "standard" hardware for my company (with thousands of developers and a good balance sheet). Good luck getting that approved as an exception.
I'd go further and say that employers are also motivated to keep corporate hardware and personal hardware separate for security reasons. Allowing personal devices direct access to corporate ones is yet another attack surface. Separation of work and personal devices is a good policy for both employees and employer.
> I specifically would not want any corporate-issued hardware happily chatting away with my personally-owned hardware
Yeah, what kind of fool would plug in their own monitor into a corporate-own laptop?
Who knows what kinds of things they'll talk about! /s
Seriously though, you do you. What you specifically want is fine for what you have.
However, describing The Apple Way™ decision to only allow connections between devices that you own as sensible requires further justification (given a pretty expoistion in the article as to why it is not, in fact, sensible).
This annoyance also extends to other features like using an iPhone as webcam, unlocking with Apple Watch, using Apple Music (you can’t login to a different account, only the system one)…
MDM is so common in every tech company - I bet Apple’s own employee issued macs are managed, it is inexplicable how this is still a problem.
I think this is the 'https' flavor of the airplay handshake and it doesn't play well with the federated setup I use with work. Sidecar won't work with federated flavor of my orgs appleID. It could be policy, but I'm pretty sure it should work.
> I bet Apple’s own employee issued macs are managed
I thought so too. The Apple retail employee that gave me the demo of the Vision Pro confirmed this. He said the manager at his store had a Vision Pro and wanted to use it with his Apple-issued Mac, which was managed via MDM.
Huh? That must've been a recent change. I used to log into apple music via itunes with my personal account while MacOS itself was using my work account.. yep, two separate apple IDs.
Who are these companies that either require a non-personal Apple Id or forbid a personal Apple Id? I’ve worked for startups and multinationals and never had an issue with my work machine allowing a personal Apple Id.
Obviously I have to be personally ok with allowing work possible access to my Apple Id, but for me it’s an acceptable trade off given that they have access to everything I say on Slack, and if we’re being honest, that’s the where the “HR needs a word” is gonna come from.
My employer requires you to use a work Apple ID if you use an Apple ID (optional for just MacBook, required if you have a work iPhone). I think it's perfectly reasonable - I don't want my personal Apple ID intermingled with my work computer.
> Obviously I have to be personally ok with allowing work possible access to my Apple Id, but for me it’s an acceptable trade off given that they have access to everything I say on Slack, and if we’re being honest, that’s the where the “HR needs a word” is gonna come from.
Strange sentiment to me...I can modulate what I communicate in company channels, but in absolutely no way would I ever consider it acceptable that a random person from my employer could access a huge amount of my personal information... iCloud contents might include phone backups, messages, emails, passwords, personal photo library, web history, bookmarks, notes, etc, synced in from all of your other personal devices.
I've learned firsthand the hard way that a small percentage of people are deeply unethical and completely untrustworthy. I can't optimize my entire life around avoiding them, but I certainly can make sure that if they happen to be an {IT employee, HR employee, higher-up} in my company, they won't have access to my personal things.
I log in with my personal Apple ID and get the stuff from App Store I bought on my company machine too.
All companies have used MDM to disable iCloud Drive though, which was a pain with a few apps that used it to sync stuff between computers, but perfectly reasonable. It's so transparent that it'd be too easy to accidentally get corporate stuff on my own Cloud Drive.
I moved that stuff to sync via a Dropbox account I don't use for anything else and everything has been fine for years.
> Who are these companies that either require a non-personal Apple Id or forbid a personal Apple Id?
They exist, but they're mostly the companies that are the kind you'd never see on HN: relatively high-employee-turnover medium-sized businesses entirely uninvolved in technology - that aren't large enough to have an adequately funded IT dept - or where their IT is outsourced to a nepotistic MSP.
...the kind where IT policies are set by the same-kinds-of-people that banks hire that tell them to actively try to stop users pasting passwords into their online-banking logon screens.
I don’t understand the downvotes to this comment. Obviously you can disagree, but it’s the obvious question in response to lots of commenters implying this isn’t possible.
I'm also annoyed that using an Apple Watch requires signing into an iCloud account. I stopped using iCloud a long time ago (currently self-hosting everything). Garmin smartwatches don't need a persistent login, which is why I purchased it. I think I will stick to Garmin watches going into the future.
Apple had to lock down iOS in 17.4 because enough people were being tricked into entering their passcode by a thief who in turn would steal the device, access their passwords and drain their bank accounts.
So not sure that allowing pairing between different accounts and relying on a passcode for security is going to be that secure.
Consider the setup process for the Apple TV. The TV shows a unique one-time-use QR code-like pattern that you can scan with the camera of an iOS device. Surely something like this would be sufficient for pairing a Vision Pro with a Mac.
Also the security implications of encouraging people to add their personal Apple ID to devices they don’t own are, IMO, worse.
Honestly the real problem with security is the whole passcode -> Face ID -> passcode flow.
It is relatively easy for someone to see the passcode that unlocks my phone, in one way or another.
All of my banking apps are locked behind Face ID. But if you lock an app with Face ID, you can just override with the phones passcode. This is dumb.
The app Face ID backup passcode should be separate from the device unlock passcode, or that should at least be an option. Maybe I'm at a party and I want someone to be able to unlock my phone to use Spotify, but I don't want to also give them access to all my banking apps.
The fact that you cannot connect this to an HDMI device will be the death for this.
Now they are hostages of Netflix, YouTube or any content owner. Had they have HDMI in, we would be able to just use a Roku stick to project 4k hdr Netflix content, or straight up project an 8k resolution Mac desktop.
> They employ a distinct brand of gaslighting and blaming-the-user that I have come to associate solely with them.
> Curiously this limitation wasn’t enough to make me return the device, despite it being part of my justification for it.
Why write such long winded post after considering the above quotes? In the end non of the considerations around work/personal apple id, MDM, etc matters when decisions are made purely on some brand persuasion. That's why Apple doesn't care
For the record, I did not return my (4x cheaper) iPad. I didn’t ever buy a Vision Pro. Because of the Apple ID issue. I’m trying to convince Apple that they should care because they lost a sale.
Apple uses AppleID to authenticate globally. If the experience degrades without one OR there is too much effort to support this, I’d be happy with Apple making this call.
I feel it’s very validation seeking to rail on a company for not supporting the most “privacy focused” use cases. If you want an uncommon use case to be supported, don’t expect a profit-motivated company to do this. It’s just not in their interest. Furthermore, I use these capabilities to improve my life. So, I personally don’t want Apple to be compelled to invest in an experience that breaks from the Apple-y way.
(Not a fan boy. Maybe I need to accept that I may be becoming one.)
Multi-user support would be very welcome on a device selling for 3500 USD. I find it rather user-hostile that iPads don’t have this option either, but even their flagship device? Come on.
LeoPanthera|2 years ago
chrnola|2 years ago
Also, how many of us have purchased keyboards, mice, displays, headphones, etc with our own money that we happily use with employer owned computers because it’s safe to do so?
pquki4|2 years ago
iPad is not in the list of "standard" hardware for my company (with thousands of developers and a good balance sheet). Good luck getting that approved as an exception.
Retr0id|2 years ago
atrettel|2 years ago
romwell|2 years ago
Yeah, what kind of fool would plug in their own monitor into a corporate-own laptop?
Who knows what kinds of things they'll talk about! /s
Seriously though, you do you. What you specifically want is fine for what you have.
However, describing The Apple Way™ decision to only allow connections between devices that you own as sensible requires further justification (given a pretty expoistion in the article as to why it is not, in fact, sensible).
ricardobeat|2 years ago
MDM is so common in every tech company - I bet Apple’s own employee issued macs are managed, it is inexplicable how this is still a problem.
plussed_reader|2 years ago
chrnola|2 years ago
I thought so too. The Apple retail employee that gave me the demo of the Vision Pro confirmed this. He said the manager at his store had a Vision Pro and wanted to use it with his Apple-issued Mac, which was managed via MDM.
w-ll|2 years ago
rovr138|2 years ago
Joined her on a travel trip. She went to the office, decided to try using her iPad as a second monitor via usb c… nope. Can’t do that.
No idea why. It’s unlocked. It’s trusted. Why can’t it be used?
lilyball|2 years ago
WWLink|2 years ago
That sucks.
davisp|2 years ago
Obviously I have to be personally ok with allowing work possible access to my Apple Id, but for me it’s an acceptable trade off given that they have access to everything I say on Slack, and if we’re being honest, that’s the where the “HR needs a word” is gonna come from.
piperswe|2 years ago
macNchz|2 years ago
Strange sentiment to me...I can modulate what I communicate in company channels, but in absolutely no way would I ever consider it acceptable that a random person from my employer could access a huge amount of my personal information... iCloud contents might include phone backups, messages, emails, passwords, personal photo library, web history, bookmarks, notes, etc, synced in from all of your other personal devices.
I've learned firsthand the hard way that a small percentage of people are deeply unethical and completely untrustworthy. I can't optimize my entire life around avoiding them, but I certainly can make sure that if they happen to be an {IT employee, HR employee, higher-up} in my company, they won't have access to my personal things.
theshrike79|2 years ago
I log in with my personal Apple ID and get the stuff from App Store I bought on my company machine too.
All companies have used MDM to disable iCloud Drive though, which was a pain with a few apps that used it to sync stuff between computers, but perfectly reasonable. It's so transparent that it'd be too easy to accidentally get corporate stuff on my own Cloud Drive.
I moved that stuff to sync via a Dropbox account I don't use for anything else and everything has been fine for years.
Dalewyn|2 years ago
DaiPlusPlus|2 years ago
They exist, but they're mostly the companies that are the kind you'd never see on HN: relatively high-employee-turnover medium-sized businesses entirely uninvolved in technology - that aren't large enough to have an adequately funded IT dept - or where their IT is outsourced to a nepotistic MSP.
...the kind where IT policies are set by the same-kinds-of-people that banks hire that tell them to actively try to stop users pasting passwords into their online-banking logon screens.
jtc331|2 years ago
rubatuga|2 years ago
threeseed|2 years ago
So not sure that allowing pairing between different accounts and relying on a passcode for security is going to be that secure.
chrnola|2 years ago
Also the security implications of encouraging people to add their personal Apple ID to devices they don’t own are, IMO, worse.
fastball|2 years ago
It is relatively easy for someone to see the passcode that unlocks my phone, in one way or another.
All of my banking apps are locked behind Face ID. But if you lock an app with Face ID, you can just override with the phones passcode. This is dumb.
The app Face ID backup passcode should be separate from the device unlock passcode, or that should at least be an option. Maybe I'm at a party and I want someone to be able to unlock my phone to use Spotify, but I don't want to also give them access to all my banking apps.
whatever1|2 years ago
Now they are hostages of Netflix, YouTube or any content owner. Had they have HDMI in, we would be able to just use a Roku stick to project 4k hdr Netflix content, or straight up project an 8k resolution Mac desktop.
Aurornis|2 years ago
If people wanted a headset for HDMI content, they wouldn’t be spending thousands on a Vision Pro.
This feels like a case of “it doesn’t match my requirements and therefore nobody else should want it either”.
Vision Pro just isn’t for you.
behnamoh|2 years ago
Apple owns Apple TV, Apple Music, and probably some secret service they're cooking specific to 3D cinema. I think they're fine.
627467|2 years ago
> Curiously this limitation wasn’t enough to make me return the device, despite it being part of my justification for it.
Why write such long winded post after considering the above quotes? In the end non of the considerations around work/personal apple id, MDM, etc matters when decisions are made purely on some brand persuasion. That's why Apple doesn't care
chrnola|2 years ago
parentheses|2 years ago
I feel it’s very validation seeking to rail on a company for not supporting the most “privacy focused” use cases. If you want an uncommon use case to be supported, don’t expect a profit-motivated company to do this. It’s just not in their interest. Furthermore, I use these capabilities to improve my life. So, I personally don’t want Apple to be compelled to invest in an experience that breaks from the Apple-y way.
(Not a fan boy. Maybe I need to accept that I may be becoming one.)
DaiPlusPlus|2 years ago
Exhibit A:
> So, I personally don’t want Apple to be compelled to invest in an experience that breaks from the Apple-y way.
I'd say so.
bouke|2 years ago
Craig_Rodriguez|2 years ago
[deleted]
Williams77|2 years ago
[deleted]
justina20|2 years ago
[deleted]