# Apple Business Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-business/ 6 people recommended Apple Business in Hacker News comments, 9 had mixed feelings and 50 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 1 of 12 months, in 1 thread. It does not meet the Hacker Approved badge rule. 6 of the 6 people who recommend it commented in one thread, “Apple Business”. **Verdict:** More people criticize it than recommend it. Free MDM and device enrollment for organisations, with a simple setup many found painless. The most common caveat is onboarding problems and limited configurability. Summary written by Claude from the comments below. ## What people warn about - Onboarding and sign-up failures (4 comments in the sample): "I never managed to get in. My account is good enough to take my money for other things but somehow I can't manage to onboard…" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47509085)) "I gave up when it wanted a Dun and Bradstreet number (whoever they are) and the website to get one didn't work." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47508659)) "failed because Apple was not able to match it against DUNS. It took months of support to get it done." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47514362)) - Restricts choices and can cancel accounts (3 comments in the sample): "Apple's whole shtick is to take away most of your choices so that they can focus on the limited number of things they still allow…" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47515361)) "Did you know that your employees will be forbidden from downloading from the App store once you launched that migration?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47505989)) "30 days later they canceled the ABM company account and deleted all the associated users along with the Apple ID" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47518529)) - Ties personal data to employer account (3 comments in the sample): "you either can't accumulate any personal data on the device, or you need to submit all of your personal data to your employer's Apple Account" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47507631)) "This is the kind of failure mode that makes people nervous about tightly coupled identity + device management" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47517643)) "they are now directly selling the attention of their device consumers to their business customers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47504970)) - Limited configurability and features (2 comments in the sample): "The level of configurability in AB is significantly less than what is available in established platforms" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47510459)) "missing programmable documents (Microsoft) or hooks to use AI (Google" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47509551)) ## Why people recommend it - Free MDM with no extra cost (4 comments in the sample): "599$ serviceable MacBooks, easy to use MDM, Cloud, Email and Calendar and flat-fee AppleCare all baked in?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47505054)) "We have saved thousands of $$ so far and stand to save a lot more!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47509636)) "If so this is insane value compared to everything else." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47510593)) - Simple, painless setup for organisations (2 comments in the sample): "my experience doing this process for a ~130 person org last year was pretty painless" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47508870)) "I also organised this process at work, and it went rather well" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47510918)) - Single-vendor integration, one support contact (1 comment in the sample): "the Business Manager integration route into MDM" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47509069)) ## What people recommend instead - [Microsoft Intune](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsoft-intune/): 6 recommend, 3 mixed, 20 criticize ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://business.apple.com/) ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Apple Business", https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-business/ (6 recommend, 9 mixed, 50 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.