Apple beefs up enterprise support in iOS 8
During his keynote presentation at WWDC today, Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi, called iOS "a huge hit in the Enterprise." While known for his hyperbole, Federighi wasn't far off the mark.
He noted that 98 percent of the Fortune 500 uses iOS partially because of its great iOS-tailored apps (he showed screenshots of Microsoft Excel, Salesforce.com, Roambi and Scrollmotion) and spoke about enterprise manageability features that Apple has added to iOS over the years.
He called iOS' Device Enrollment Program "emblematic of Apple's philosophy about the enterprise." The relatively new Apple program allows companies to issue shrink-wrapped iPhones and iPads to employees that auto-configure corporate network settings and download corporate apps according to company policy after unboxing and connecting to a network.
iOS 8 adds several new enterprise features in the areas of security, productivity and management, including:
Expanded data protection in the form of passcode-protection of all the major data types (Calendar, Contacts, Mail, Messages, Notes, Reminders) and third-party apps.
Per message S/MIME allows users to sign and encrypt individual messages for greater control over the security of mail messages.
WWDC 201
VIP Threads is a new iOS 8 feature allowing you to subscribe to important email threads and get notifications on your lock screen, without having to designate the sender(s) as "VIPs." There's also a corresponding VIP thread mailbox, like the exceeding useful VIP mailbox in iOS 7.
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For added security you can have external email addresses marked in red. Exchange users will enjoy the ability to set automatic reply messages (like out of office and vacation responses) directly from your iOS device.
iOS 8 also allows you to see meeting availability in the Calendar app. You can also mark events as private and create events that repeat at custom intervals and lengths of time, such as on the first Monday of every month. You can also email meeting attendees from within the Calendar app to let them know you’re running late.
Even more iOS 8 enterprise features can be found here.