There has been a lot of excitement around the strategic partnership between Cisco and Apple. While there is still more to come from both companies down the road, Cisco Meraki is pleased to share enhancements on the mobile device and Enterprise Mobility Management fronts.

This week we introduced same day support for iOS 9.3, enabling IT administrators to take advantage of new functionality with no disruption to their workflow. Meraki Systems Manager makes it easy to upgrade devices to iOS 9.3 and future releases, with support for over the air OS updates for supervised devices. With just a couple of clicks in the dashboard, IT administrators can rest assured that their organization’s devices are running the most secure, up-to-date version of iOS, without the headache of manually updating each device individually, or relying upon users to do it themselves.

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Apple has added several new features to iOS 9.3 which will benefit those using an EMM solution, including the ability to hide all system level apps (excluding settings).  This ensures that end users can only access approved applications on a managed device, and can help prevent the device from being used inappropriately. This functionality can be especially useful in environments like retail, or kiosks, where device use needs to be restricted to a very narrow purpose.  For supervised devices, iOS 9.3 also gives administrators the option of customizing a Lock Screen Message that can be displayed in the login window, and lock screen.

In addition to new MDM functionality, iOS 9.3 adds several other benefits, like the ability to password protect notes, and a Night Shift mode which can help employees, students, and teachers sleep better at night so they’re fresh for challenges of the next day. Check out Apple’s update for more information.

General availability for full iOS 9.3 functionality is coming in April. Stay tuned for even more information on features like support for Classroom Manager, which Apple will have generally available very soon.