About this Mac vs JSS hardware YEAR INFO

[tcandela]

when I choose ABOUT THIS MAC it says (11-inch, Early 2014)

but the JSS hardware inventory for the same computer says its an (11-inch, Mid 2013)

does anybody else get this same result/discrepency ???

[mm2270 · Accepted solution]

Yes, all over the place. Its been documented on why this occurs. See this FR thread for some examples of what the core issue is. https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/featureRequest.html?id=4389

In a nutshell, Apple inexplicably started reusing model identifiers for different but similar hardware, so a 11-inch 2014 model may use the same model identifier as that 11-inch 2013 model. Enter the JSS, which apparently uses a lookup table that translates the model identifier into the human readable name, and it sees something like MacBookAir11,2 or whatever and only sees the older model name, not the newer one. And you end up with the discrepancy.

Frankly, this has been a problem for a long while now, and there have been plenty of example of how JAMF could work around this, most of which seems to have fallen on deaf ears since here we are approaching mid 2016 and its still an issue. I really wish they'd fix this already. We've had to resort to using EAs to capture the actual computer name so we don't end up with inaccurate reports on everything, but I wish we didn't have to do this.
As an aside, its not really JAMF's fault - I put the majority of blame squarely on Apple for this issue. Who over there decided to reuse model identifiers, which one would assume should be unique per model, I don't know, but whoever they are they are obviously bats#it crazy! :-P

[tcandela]

On some of my Macbook Airs when I go to ABOUT THIS MAC , it does not give a year of the model, it just says Macbook Air. While in the JSS it says Macbook Air Late 2010

I tried using the Extension Attribute from here

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/featureRequest.html?id=2567#responseChild7202 (9/4/14 by mmw270)

and the result is nothing, i get this <result></result>

I tried the EA on a Macbook pro and i get the correct model/year

[tcandela]

looks like the script works for some macs and not other macs

[mm2270]

@tcandela Yes, what you're seeing is something I also discovered just recently, Some MacBook Airs just show up as "MacBook Air" with no additional info like year, screen size, etc. This is coming from Apple, again. I even get this when using the scripted method pulling data from Apple's site, so its apparently something Apple would need to address.

Also, when you open up About This Mac to look at model info, what's actually happening is something similar to the scripts on the threads posted above, it grabs a portion of the serial number and sends it back to Apple to generate the correct name. You can see this if you re-image a Mac and keep it off the internet when you first power it on and open About this Mac, you'll see it only report basic info, like "MacBook Pro" or "MacBook Air", etc. It requires an internet connection to go get the full human readable name.