Yeah, thats seeming more and more like my best option. I really appreciate everyones input.

@hkabik I've a few steps on taking a "traditional" imaging workflow & converting it to a no imaging one

The no imaging method is great and all, but falls down at scale, especially at EDU scale where there are thousands of machines that need to be managed/provisioned/imaged
The reason we have a centrally managed netboot system is so that we don't have to mess around with TDM or external HD's, not every site has a tech at it. machines need to be provisioned and imaged by end users so their interface needs to be highly automated and simple. ie turn on, hold n, enter your name, press play.

so again there is no one size fits all despite how hard apple tries to push this one size fits all model on us.

VPP+DEP

Unless you're behind a proxy, then the bet's off.

Authenticated proxies, 802.1x, AD blah blah blah
VPP+DEP again great for small little shops....

True, so many ideas tossed on the table at Apple, and so little vetting, POC in enterprise. :)

DEP is like many of Apple's ideas. Brilliant in concept, truly it is, but not very well thought out for the "real world". The problem is that Apple operates in their own vision of an ideal world where everything is perfect, people always do what they are supposed to, and there are internet connections no matter where you are.
On that last point, as has been pointed out elsewhere, DEP works well, until the first couple of users decide to boot up and set up their Mac with no internet connection, and the Mac does not enroll in your management solution, and does not pick up later that it should get enrolled. Oh well...

@calumhunter My point was to take the normal workflow & amend slightly for the 1's or 2'a that might need a forked OS beforr it becomes unified.

If a number of those macs are delivered & time is pressing, I'd create an OS.dmg from one via Composer (9.7+ so to include recovery).. Then AutoCasperNBI & then it's easy to amend an imaging config.

I so wish Apple would read this thread : ) That said has anybody tested net-booting the new Macs? The past few forked machines still netbooted to the "old" netboot image, allowing us to still use Casper imaging to lay down our files.

C

But what's the real problem? That new Macs have a forked image? How else can it support the new hardware? It's common practice to capture a separate image for those Macs until the next point release of the OS.

Let's be careful though, with declaring VPP and DEP useless. Apple hasn't broke netbooting nor are they requiring everyone to use VPP/DEP. (With the exception of App Store only apps I suppose..)

Netbooting does not fit my needs, so I don't use it. There is a large community where traditional workflows do not help them. I'm not saying netbooting or thick imaging sucks. I use DEP and MDM to deploy my laptops because it works for my needs. DEP and VPP are used in companies of various sizes not just small ones.

One thing Apple could do (not saying we necessarily need them to) is to allow new hardware to still boot the most recent previous OS in some type of "limp" mode. You'd still boot but would not have the best CPU, network, or display speed. Maybe be missing some resolutions or such, but you'd get something better than a grey "no access" logo. Once booted, you could access the internet, where the OS would realize "Hey, I don't have the latest drivers. I will download them." And then boom, your new Mac, running the previous build (in this case 14D131), would be fully functional. Headaches are averted.

@ktappe ....just make a package with the new drivers for enterprise to be able to deploy.....That's how OEMs deal with PCs in the Windows world. The computer could come with whatever OS, but the company can wipe it and just download the drivers for whatever OS the machine supports. It amazes me really that Apple doesn't spend any resources on that considering that they make so much and it would be a huge gesture toward being more enterprise friendly. But I understand if they did that there would be security implications as well because many companies would avoid updating to the latest OS because they could then just stay with what they have already. Just look at how many companies are still running Windows XP....

And just remember however important we think we are, we are probably less that 5% of Apple sales. So, they only put in just enough effort on enterprise as somebody like Microsoft does on making Office be a really good product on the Mac its not their bread and butter and if its good enough people will use it. If we would all drink the Apple Kool-Aid and use a Mac mini for open directory to run your corporation identity management system and let iCloud connect all your devices and not worry about security settings, I am sure everything would be oh so much better :) Or from MS standpoint if we would all run windows then office would be what its supposed to be. Personally I prefer new stuff requiring new OS and not the old OS, but it would be Oh so much better a place to be if they would quit releasing a new OS every 12 months and just fix the current one and add features to it after they do. But what do I know they have billions of dollars I have hundreds, they look much smarter than me from a $ view anyway.

I agree with most of what you said @nessts except I quite like the yearly releases and the App Store model. No longer have to rely on discs and waiting for new reference discs to be available from the Apple Store. Every new update is in the App Store which is nice.

Honestly the forked build is only an issue for 2 months at most of the year.

Jeez, if Apple and JAMF fixed everything tomorrow, 1/3 of the people with jobs like us would be unemployed.
Let's face it, being high-tech janitors, it's nice to have some problems to figure out now and then. Or hourly.
And, I reckon that most here find this torture fun. Or else we'd all be working at Starbucks...

@boettchs wrote:

Jeez, if Apple and JAMF fixed everything tomorrow, 1/3 of the people with jobs like us would be unemployed.

I think that would free up more cycles for us to work on more important stuff. It's always been a goal in enterprise to push stuff down the ladder. How else will you free yourself to move up the ladder.

At some point the business has to decide whether we are needed, or whether we can be replaced. Those that enable others survive and live to fry the bigger fish. Those that don't have a shorter life.

I think Apple's yearly OS releases are not so great and I think the cracks are beginning to show. Yosemite for example, shipped with a pretty significant amount of bugs. Some of them have been addressed, but there are others lingering, still waiting to be addressed by Apple. While this isn't uncommon, some of the bugs were things that were quite baffling and affected everyone, not just the enterprise.
In the larger context of all OS X releases going back to 10.0.0, Yosemite wasn't that bad, but keep in mind this was the 11th major release of OS X, and some pretty basic items were broken out of the gate. I personally think Apple needs to slow it down a bit and start focusing on what they have done so well for so many years, which is quality.

The problem that comes in here is that, Apple has kind of created their own monster. By having a brand new release of OS X every year with a bunch of new fancy features and big UI changes, they've trained the public to expect this. Truth is, bug fixes aren't sexy and don't sell computers or software. But at some point, buggy crappy software is going to hurt their sales. Yeah, it hasn't happened yet, based on recent quarterly results, but I'm concerned it will start to affect things if they keep trying to maintain this pace. I just don't want to see OS X start becoming like Windows was a few years back where it was just buggy inconsistent and unreliable. Funny how things are beginning to reverse; now with Apple on top of the world, they're getting a bit sloppy. MS by contrast has shaken things up internally and are starting to focus on quality releases and not just slapping in new features. That's part of what got Microsoft into trouble with Windows in the first place.

Anyway, If recent rumors posted out there are true, the developers inside Apple are feeling it too and are pressuring execs to slow things down so they can focus on fixing and refining, instead of new! new! new!! all the time. I sure hope sane minds prevail and they take their top developers warnings into consideration. Time will tell I guess...

@mm2270 I wholeheartedly agree. I was hoping that they would fall off that bandwagon when they left the "MacWorld" conference behind. Turns out I was wrong on that one. I do think it's important to keep the OS moving forward, but slamming out a major OS version every 12 months is bound to take it's toll.

As for the forked release. Apple could certainly make the "fork" available to at least registered Developers easily enough. It's not like we don't have our tricks to get, essentially, the ESD anyways.

What's the model identifier for this model? I'd like to be accurate when discussing it. Thanks!

@milesleacy That's a good question. I just looked and Mactracker hasn't been updated yet for the new 15" model. But based on the past pattern, it might be "MacBookPro12,2" for the 2.2 Ghz, and "MacBookPro12,3" for the 2.5 Ghz model. But we'll need to wait until someone who has one can report on that.

Nothing for 15" models on Everymac lookup page yet.

Just got a client with 2015 rMBP 15" 11,4. OS X 10.10.3 14D2134.

HTH, for one model anyway...

Maybe they're watching this thread? :)

Ah, wow, I was way off on my guess. Looking back now I see that the Mid 2014 15" model was 11,3, so it makes sense the latest ones start at 11,4.

From the MacTracker developer:

Hi Don, The latest MacBook Pro will be included in the next release. It is currently under review with Apple so should be available shortly. -Ian