BYOD Basics: Managing iOS 8 Devices Via Microsoft Intune

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iOS8Intune

With the recent release of iOS 8, many IT Professionals have been wondering how said devices with the now upgraded OS offering would be managed via existing Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions. Some also wonder the length of time till an update is pushed down from said MDM vendor to address the change.

Microsoft has gone through great lengths to ensure their cloud based MDM offering, Intune, would support iOS 8 management on day of launch. Intune also furthers compatibility to take advantage of the nuances provided by the updated OS. Martin Booth and Wally Mead present a great overview of Microsoft Intune within Microsoft Virtual Academy highlighting the advantage of this MDM cloud offering and it extends over a multitude of OS offerings.

The new iOS 8 offering enables additional policy sets providing further control via Intune.  These specific features include:

  • More control over company owned devices by disabling the ability for end users from enabling restrictions on data at rest and disabling the ability for end users to wipe said device
     
  • E-mails now have the ability to be encrypted per-message via S/MIME encryption
     
  • App data leakage can now be prevented by enabling a policy to disable  iCloud Sync access
     

These features are added to the plethora of additional policies made available via previous versions of iOS supported by Intune.