Apple @ Work is brought to you by Mosyle, the only Apple Unified Platform. Mosyle is the only solution that fully integrates five different applications on a single Apple-only platform, allowing businesses to easily and automatically deploy, manage, & protect all their Apple devices. Over 38,000 organizations leverage Mosyle solutions to automate the deployment, management, and security of millions of Apple devices daily. Request a FREE account today and discover how you can put your Apple fleet on auto-pilot at a price point that is hard to believe.
For Apple IT admins who manage thousands of remote Macs, providing support for end users is not always easy. There can be a lot of variables that you must uncover when issues arise. One of the things I’ve often thought Apple should add is a simple menu bar app that can quickly allow users to copy and paste key data into a support ticket. Thankfully, one company is continuing to provide a solution: Root3’s Support App and version 2.5 recently shipped.
About Apple @ Work: Bradley Chambers managed an enterprise IT network from 2009 to 2021. Through his experience deploying and managing firewalls, switches, a mobile device management system, enterprise-grade Wi-Fi, 100s of Macs, and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple IT managers deploy Apple devices, build networks to support them, train users, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for IT departments.
As you can see from the photo above, Support App offers a lot of quick information at a glance for end users and IT professionals that can help determine where a problem might lie on macOS. It offers a number of customization options that I’ll detail below, but the goal behind the app is to highlight key information that might impact macOS performance while also providing quick links to company resources – again all customizable.
The Menu Bar Icon for Support App can be customized to use your own PNG or using an SF Symbol. The row above the buttons allows a custom title and putting your company logo. The logo supports several image formats resized to a maximum height of 48 points. The original aspect ratio will be retained.
A total of four items will be displayed in the top four buttons, and IT teams can pick from multiple options that best suit their team’s needs. You can choose from Computer Name, macOS version (clicking opens up the Software Update screen), Last Reboot (can be customized to show an ! if it exceeds the maximum time recommended by your company), storage used, IP address with an indicator for Wi-Fi or ethernet (useful when troubleshooting VPN, guest networking, hotel connections etc.), and shows when the global password for the user account will expire.
The buttons in the third and fourth rows behave as shortcuts to apps or links. Both rows can show two or three buttons. These shortcuts might include a company help portal, Company portal, support phone number, etc.
What’s new in Support App 2.5?
The team at Root3 recently shipped a fantastic new update to Support App that brings a number of great features to the app.
- macOS software update details and add an optional organizational policy text using Markdown
- Remote images using a URL and SF Symbols support for branding. This means you no longer need to package images.
- Support App Extension alerts to trigger warnings in the Extension and menu bar icon. For teams running through a security compliance project, this is a must-have enhancement
- Rapid Security Response support – I think this is the key feature of this release as this feature has been discussed heavily among Apple IT professionals
- macOS 14 support
Another key feature is support for built-in variables to pull in device information. The following variables are available:
- $LocalComputerName: the current computer name/hostname
- $LocalModelName: the model name, like MacBook Air (M2, 2022). Apple Silicon only
- $LocalModelShortName: the short model name like MacBook or iMac
- $LocalFullName: the full name of the local macOS user account
- $LocalUserName: the username of the local macOS user account
- $LocalMacosVersion: the macOS version, like 13.4.1
- $LocalMacosVersionName: the macOS version marketing name, like Ventura or Sonoma
- $LocalSerialNumber: the device serial number
- $LocalIpAddress: the current IP address
- $LocalUpdatesAvailable: the number of updates available
Support App is completely free and can easily be deployed through your device manager system.
Apple @ Work is brought to you by Mosyle, the only Apple Unified Platform. Mosyle is the only solution that fully integrates 5 different applications on a single Apple-only platform, allowing Businesses to easily and automatically deploy, manage & protect all their Apple devices. Over 38,000 organizations leverage Mosyle solutions to automate the deployment, management, and security of millions of Apple devices daily. Request a FREE account today and discover how you can put your Apple fleet on auto-pilot at a price point that is hard to believe.
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