Apple @ Work is brought to you exclusively by MosyleApple’s only unified platform. Mosyle is the only solution that integrates into a single professional-grade platform all the solutions needed to seamlessly and automatically deploy, manage and protect Apple devices at work. Over 45,000 organizations trust Mosyle to get millions of Apple devices up and running effortlessly and affordably. Request your extended trial today and see why Mosyle is everything you need to work with Apple.
If you worked in IT during the 2000s and early 2010s, you know that managing printer drivers was the absolute worst part of the job and was a huge part of OS X improvements. Manufacturers delayed support for the new OS X for months, and it was generally just an absolute nightmare. Then the iPhone and iPad arrived and changed everything…slowly.
About Apple @ Work: Bradley Chambers managed an enterprise IT network from 2009 to 2021. Through his experience in deploying and managing firewalls, switches, a mobile device management system, enterprise-class Wi-Fi, 1000 Macs and 1000 iPads, Bradley will highlight how Apple IT managers deploy network stories for managing Apple IT devices, and how Apple can improve its products for IT departments.
When Apple introduced AirPrint in 2010, most enterprise IT administrators dismissed it. It looked like a consumer feature designed for printing photos at home on a $50 printer. As the iPhone and iPad penetrated the corporate world, something interesting happened. Executives started bringing their iPads to work and wanted to print PDFs and didn’t want to hear about drivers or IP addresses. They just wanted to hit Print and make it work at home. Instead of Apple adopting the complicated world of printer drivers, the rest of the industry had to adopt AirPrint.
The iPhone forced the industry to adapt
Apple is so popular now that AirPrint has become something that every printer vendor must support. In the early days, getting an enterprise multifunction printer to work with an iPad was a nightmare of third-party apps and gateways. I used a lot of them, and they were kind of dope. Today, the sheer volume of Apple devices used at work forced companies such as HP, Canon, Xerox and Ricoh to finally support AirPrint.
Over time, almost all MFPs built native support for AirPrint. They had no choice. Not supporting AirPrint made it a non-starter for purchases and rentals. This change didn’t just help mobile users. It also ultimately changed the way we manage Macs. We moved on from the era of finding the perfect driver for the vast majority of our printing to AirPrint becoming the standard printing protocol. No, not every use case can use AirPrint, but it has gone from AirPrint to being the exception to the rule. You can rent several Ricoh printers and use AirPrint right out of the box without ever touching a driver.
PaperCut and the modern print stack
While AirPrint provided connectivity, it did not solve the enterprise’s need for accounting, quotas, and security. Here are the solutions as well Paper cutting they have crossed the gap. PaperCut is a great example of Apple’s impact on the enterprise. It works extremely well with macOS, but is so easy for iPad and iPhone via a configuration profile. It’s easy enough for end users to install, but gives IT the control it needs.
In a modern setup, you don’t manually add printers. You set up a configuration profile, log in through your SSO, and then you’re up and running. This profile tells the iOS device or Mac exactly where the printer queues are. The user walks up, hits print, and the job goes to a virtual queue. They release it to the printer with a tap of the symbol or a simple pin code. It is without problems.
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We often talk about how Apple changed mobile device management, but we rarely give them credit for fixing print. I just don’t manage printer drivers today. It’s 100% AirPrint. By forcing the industry to adopt a driverless standard, they saved IT administrators everywhere the pain of specific printer drivers, and it also made macOS upgrades much smoother. It took a while to get here, but the combination of native AirPrint hardware and software like PaperCut has finally made enterprise printing a problem solved.
Apple @ Work is brought to you exclusively by MosyleApple’s only unified platform. Mosyle is the only solution that integrates into a single professional-grade platform all the solutions needed to seamlessly and automatically deploy, manage and protect Apple devices at work. Over 45,000 organizations trust Mosyle to get millions of Apple devices up and running effortlessly and affordably. Request your extended trial today and see why Mosyle is everything you need to work with Apple.
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