WWDC 2024 notes

This week, as in previous years since 2020, I attended Apple’s WWDC 2024 conference from the comforts of home. As part of this, I took notes during the labs and session videos. Due to wanting to stay on the right side of Apple’s NDA, I’ve posted my notes to Apple’s developer forums rather than to here.

To make it easier for Mac admins to access them, I’ve set up a post in the forums where I’ve linking the various forum posts with my notes. It’s available via the link below:

https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/757220

 

Update 6-17-2024: The content posted to the Apple developer forums is no longer available. I have received no communication from Apple as to why it is no longer available, but my assumption is that posting the content was objectionable and subsequently removed.

As the Apple developer forums were the only location that I felt were safe to post this content, and because I have no desire to speak with Apple Legal about this issue, I will not be sharing the notes I took at WWDC to any other locations. Instead, I would encourage interested parties to watch the session videos for the two sessions I took notes in:

• What’s new in Privacy: https://developer.apple.com/wwdc24/10123
• Whats new in device management: https://developer.apple.com/wwdc24/10143

Building Jamf Pro smart groups for Sequoia-compatible and Sequoia-incompatible Mac models

As part of preparing for macOS Sequoia, it may be useful to have a way to easily distinguish between the Macs in your fleet which can run macOS Sequoia and those which can’t. Apple has published the following list of Macs which are compatible with Sequoia, which will help with both identifying the compatible Mac models as well as the incompatible Mac models. 

• iMac: 2019 and later models
• iMac Pro: All models
• Mac Studio: All models
• MacBook Pro: 2018 and later models
• MacBook Air: 2020 and later models
• Mac Mini: 2018 and later models
• Mac Pro: 2019 and later models

From there, here’s the list of Mac models which are compatible with macOS Sequoia:

	Mac13,1
	Mac13,2
	Mac14,10
	Mac14,12
	Mac14,13
	Mac14,14
	Mac14,15
	Mac14,2
	Mac14,3
	Mac14,5
	Mac14,6
	Mac14,7
	Mac14,8
	Mac14,9
	Mac15,10
	Mac15,11
	Mac15,12
	Mac15,13
	Mac15,3
	Mac15,4
	Mac15,5
	Mac15,6
	Mac15,7
	Mac15,8
	Mac15,9
	MacBookAir10,1
	MacBookAir9,1
	MacBookPro15,1
	MacBookPro15,2
	MacBookPro15,3
	MacBookPro15,4
	MacBookPro16,1
	MacBookPro16,2
	MacBookPro16,3
	MacBookPro16,4
	MacBookPro17,1
	MacBookPro18,1
	MacBookPro18,2
	MacBookPro18,3
	MacBookPro18,4
	MacPro7,1
	Macmini8,1
	Macmini9,1
	VirtualMac2,1
	iMac19,1
	iMac19,2
	iMac20,1
	iMac20,2
	iMac21,1
	iMac21,2
	iMacPro1,1

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sequoia_compatible_models.txt

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

 

We can use this information to build smart groups which can help identify which Macs are compatible with Sequoia and which are not. For more details, see below the jump:

 

Using Wi-Fi hardware network interface information with Jamf Pro to identify macOS virtual machines

A while back, I had a deployment requirement where I could deploy a specific something to regular Macs but under no circumstances could I deploy it to virtual machines. The reason was that someone could install the thing on a virtual machine, then copy the virtual machine’s files elsewhere.

The issue I was looking at was how to reliably identify a virtual machine. There are various virtualization solutions for macOS available and the macOS virtual machines hosted by them all report various information for model, serial number and other characteristics. However, one thing that macOS virtual machines should have in common regardless of virtualization solution is that they don’t have a hardware Wi-Fi interface. When you’re a VM, it’s an Ethernet world. Meanwhile, every single real Mac for decades has had Wi-Fi hardware installed. Even if it’s never used by the Mac, that Wi-Fi hardware interface should be there.

We can use this with Jamf Pro to help identify macOS virtual machines. For more details, please see below the jump.