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Apple Season
It is apple season. We had a nice harvest of apples from our backyard this year and the farmers' market has all kinds of wonderful fresh fruit.
It also seems to be Apple season in the opinion pieces. The quarterly results were reported yesterday (record-breaking, again...) which certainly would help in this regard, but there are many other opportunities to opine here, too.
📸 Focus
Apple results: Holiday dunks and questions dodged
Great summary of Apple's fiscal results of the last quarter, especially the last section on Apple's values statements.
It is worth taking note that other organizations stand by their values, even in the face significant fiscal detriment.
Apple Has Two Problems
The company has lost its way several times over the years but it has always kept going and eventually bounced back. Now it's a massive company with more money than any human can imagine, and it's losing its way again. What can they do to bounce back this time?
Creative neglect: What about the apps in Apple?
One of the things that I think about from time to time is Apple’s collection of apps. Some are the crown jewels, like Apple’s pro apps, and others help an everyday consumer to tackle their iLife. All are pretty starved for attention and resources, outside of infrequent updates aligned with showing off the native power of Apple Silicon, Apple Intelligence, or demos of platform integration that never quite get all the way there.
What Happened to Apple's Legendary Attention to Detail?
There are just a huge number of little problems, which really degrade the experience of Apple’s platforms.
Apple Threatens to Withdraw App Tracking Transparency in Europe
Nick Heer:
The consequences of previous decisions have been frustrating. They result in poorer on-device privacy controls for users in part because Apple is a self-interested party.
📰 News and Opinion
Jamf Enters into Definitive Agreement to be Acquired by Francisco Partners in $2.2 Billion Transaction
Jamf […] today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Francisco Partners for FP to acquire all the outstanding shares of Jamf.
JNUC 2025: Jamf Acquisition, Automation, and the Future of the Mac Admin Role
We left JNUC with 7 clear themes from automation and identity, to security and developer–IT alignment which are shaping the future of the Mac Admin role.
How to Navigate Imposter Syndrome When Applying for New Roles
I wanted to ask Haley why imposter syndrome hits so hard during the job search and what we can actually do about it.
🔐 Security and Privacy
AirTrafficDevice: Ignored, Reluctantly Fixed, No CVE, No Bounty: A Story of a Serious Privacy Leak in iOS
The AirTrafficDevice framework on iOS is responsible for syncing information between an iOS device and the Finder, iTunes, or the Windows Apple Devices app
🔨 Support and Tutorials
BeyondTrust PAM - Secure SSH Access and File Transfers with Password Safe
One of the challenges in moving to BeyondTrust Password Safe is the change in how users perform file transfers, such as using SCP to copy files or directories between local systems and remote servers.
Homebrew Xcode License Error Fix: Managing macOS Fleets Efficiently
The problem arises around the license acceptance flow, as the Xcode license must be accepted by the user for both the full Xcode distribution, and the command-line tools.
License acceptance is just one part of a solid managed Xcode deployment workflow.
Terraform 101: Resources and Data Sources - MacAdmin Musings
This post introduces the two most fundamental concepts in Terraform: resources and data sources. These form the basis of every configuration, and they’re how Terraform interacts with the real world.
Jamf Pro 11.22: DDM Software Update Settings, Blueprints, and Deprecations
Tony Young:
Risks, timelines, and a recommended path from legacy profiles to declarative management before the 2026 cutoff following Jamf Pro v.11.22.0
Explainer: How does macOS recognise file types?
In addition to LaunchServices making the association between the type of file you want to open and the app to use for that, UTIs are used extensively in macOS to determine how to handle different types of file.
You can use my utiluti command line tool to explore universal type identifiers (UTI) and inspect and change default applications.
🤖 Scripting and Automation
Automate all the things with swift-subprocess
Scripting is one of those use cases that has theoretically been possible in Swift since forever, but is so painful to work with, it’s functionally useless, even for trivial workloads.
Swift scripting is mostly useless for MacAdmins, anyway, since it requires Xcode or the Developer Command Line Tools to be pre-installed, which is rarely the case outside of developer Macs. That said, I am looking forward to using subprocess rather than the Process extension I have been nurturing over the past years.
Cleaning House in Jamf Pro: A Friendly Auditor Script for Real-World Hygiene
This post covers a small, practical script I wrote to help you see what’s stale, explain why it’s stale, and (optionally) park it safely out of the way—without deleting a thing.
🎧 Listen
Learning New Lore with Kitzy
Today we are so happy to welcome Kitzy back to the Mac Admins podcast after a very long time to talk about rediscovering curiosity and what it’s like to walk away from being the keeper of the lore.
Pennywise and Pound Foolish: Lessons in IT Management
Jerry discusses his recent experience in acquiring a rescue puppy and managing interactions between his pets. The hosts delve into challenges faced with client device management
Inside Cognixion’s study using Vision Pro to give voice through brain signals and AI
Chris Ullrich from Cognixion joins the show to talk about how the company is using Apple Vision Pro in a new clinical study to help people with conditions like ALS, spinal cord injuries, and stroke-related impairments communicate through a combination of brain signals, eye tracking, and AI.