Guest Column | September 24, 2019

2019 Fall Apple Announcements And New OS Releases

By Marco Nielsen, Stratix

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This year’s Apple announcements combined with the recent ones at WWDC provided some of the biggest changes for Apple mainstream platforms. This is especially true with the new OS releases that businesses need to prepare for.

These changes present a great opportunity for the enterprise and it is crucial that it is communicated as such. We are monitoring all trends for our clients and letting them know when there are opportunities to improve their operations via mobile technology. To get you up to speed on all new Apple products and updates we have outlined some of the recent announcements below.

iOS 13

The yearly hardware announcement included the official date of the release of iOS 13 as September 19th. IT departments are urged to test the open beta for this if they haven’t already.

iOS 13 brings a wealth of goodness that was highlighted this summer at the Apple WWDC event. The new Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) focused User Enrollment features are something to look at, especially for businesses. It can securely divide business and personal data on users’ devices, while remaining hands-off with “big brother” policies. Also, these features include improvements around single sign-on technologies and Apple ID management enhancements.

iPad And iPadOS

The new iPad 7th Generation brings an update to the low-cost iPad model with a larger 10.2” display and a new smart connector. It also includes a keyboard that can double as a cover and charges it similar to the one on the iPad Pro and iPad Air.

iOS 13.1 is a larger story and will bring the iPadOS to everyone on September 30th. iOS 13.1 will be made available to most of the older iPad models made since 2014. The new iPadOS brings a look and feel never seen before on these devices. iPad’s will now have a desktop feel complete with widgets and a browser that will identify itself as a Mac. New gestures and multitasking abilities will make this the biggest change to the iPad since it was first introduced almost 10 years ago. This really brings the iPad closer to a full desktop experience than a traditional mobile device.

We urge IT departments everywhere to join the Apple Open Beta Program to ensure testing on the new iPadOS as some browser applications may not look the same due to the new identification. You can check out the Apple Seed program, which is invite for corporate customers only.

iPhone 11

With the many new iPhone 11 hardware updates, here are some key highlights we think enterprises should look forward to:

  • Security – Combined with the launch of iOS 13 on September 19th, Face ID will be noticeably 30 percent faster with improved performance at varying distances and support for more angles.
  • Camera-based scanning – We could possibly see better performance with high-speed scanning operations through third party software with the updated cameras that include Night Vision.
  • Communication – Support for eSIM in all the iPhone 11 models could be important for road-warriors and international travelers, so the features of last year’s Dual SIM come into play more broadly. Also, the addition of support for the upcoming Wi-Fi 6 standard ensures compatibility with newer WLANs.
  • Battery life – Everyone should see a substantial bump up in battery life with the new A13 Bionic CPU and its new Machine Learning abilities and power management.

macOS

Although absent from the hardware announcement, the new macOS 10.15 rerelease announced this summer, named Catalina, will be coming in October. This release, a free upgrade, brings new additional functionality with the ability to port iPad applications to the desktop. It’s important for businesses to understand the features of macOS that their users may soon have access to.

These moves convey an increased focus on the enterprise customer from Apple and a desire to make supporting mobile devices easier at scale. For providers this allows for increased support capabilities, especially for BYOD. For end users, this means more business use cases and improved functions from their devices,

With so many upgrades directly impacting business users, it is crucial for enterprise IT teams to stay ahead and partner with a trusted Apple expert. Stratix SmartMobile services provides a wide range of services to best support Apple devices in your enterprise, including upgrades and migrations. Learn more about our SmartMobile Services for Apple.

About The Author

Marco Nielsen is VP of Managed Mobility Services at Stratix.