I have been playing with this for a day or so now, using my iPod Touch as guinea pig. It seems relatively simple, although it is annoying that you can't update a profile if it has an Exchange account in it!
I tried changing the password protection and allowed facilities on a profile, but the iPod refused to accept the update, because the profile also included the Exchange account - which hadn't changed...
I guess that means that I need one profile for the hardware configuration, one for certificates and one for Exchange, in practice?
Secondly, whilst I can create a corporate developer account and roll out our own Apps - something we don't currently need - I can't see any way of centrally managing standard App Store apps.
The tool doesn't seem to cover downloading apps from the app store to be installed on new devices. The documentation seems to imply that every iPhone must be synced with iTunes and download the apps from there.
The problems are :
1) If I sync them all to my laptop, I am limited to a maximum of 5 iPhones? Then I'll need to find another machine and create a second iTunes account?
2) If the users sync on their own machines (either at work or at home), they will need to create their own accounts and we have to reimburse them for each app they purchase.
3) Our users aren't very tech savvy, so getting them to set-up iTunes accounts, with payment options - most probably don't have a credit card, so we would also need to walk them through setting up a "Click and Buy" account - isn't going to be easy.
4) If I do the syncing centrally, they won't be able to load any of their own music on the iPhones - probably not an issue for most of them.
5) If they have to download the apps themselves, we have no control over what they have on the iPhone, but if we disallow the AppStore and iTunes functions, they won't be able to download any apps we define as standard...
6) If we sync all of the iPhones to one or two machines, what are the licensing implications? I can download apps at home and they get on my iPod and my iPhone, which I'm not too worried about, but if we have 5 phones for 5 users and we pay for the apps once, it is unfair on the devs and I'm unsure of the licence situation... Mind you, it would save a fortune if we install TomTom
Is there no way of centrally specifying a core of App Store apps which we download into a central repository and pay for per user? Then we can safely lock off the App Store functionality, so they can't load up the iPhone with junk...
I'm also a little worried about them buying apps at home, for the company iPhone, if the iPhone is then taken away from them, or they leave the company and have to hand back the iPhone, their "investment" will then go to waste, unless they purchase themselves a new iPhone or Touch.
7) If they buy apps on the works machine, then leave the company, will they be able to obtain the apps on their home computer, because of their account, and carry on or will their investment be lost?
That has a lot of implications about what they can and can't do and we would have to word the usage terms very carefully...
