Need help - obligated to swith to Iphone :(

[fiona221]

Hi Guys, I just changed job and my new employer did offer me to bring my own device but did not specify that i absolutely need an iphone if I want to get access to their system (security concerns I've been told). they give me around 28$ if I take this solution if not ythey can supply an iphone for free. I really need to hold to my actual phone number since I have a company attached to it. sincerly, i'm not that good with all that, my ex-boyfriend used to solve this kind of issue for me. so if someone could help me out to solving this one out, I would really appreciate. From what the IT told me, if i want to acess and synchronize emails, contacts and calendar, they will only give a security certificate to iphone users. now, I do have samsung galaxy S7 that I like and now equiped with a thermal imaging camera for android and a zen watch 1. I'm afraid not only I have to drop my android world that I love much for IOS but my equipment won't work with the new phone. overall, changing everything will cost me around 2300 $. since I don't want to carry 2 phones, what can I do that will allow me to keep my android, and get synchronize email, contacts et calendar without bugging the IT to do anything (it's a state job... hard to change anything there). Thanks for your help!

 

[Golfdriver97]

Welcome to the forums. Because we are talking about 2 different ecosystems, I am not sure if everything can work. You may not be able to access Apple's services via an Android.


I personally don't buy the reason that they can only send a certificate to iPhone users. I'm chalking that up to a combo of laziness and ignorance. My biggest argument against this is Samsung devices with Knox 2.0 (This should include your S7) are US government approved: https://www.samsungknox.com/en/qa/knox-certified-us-government

 

[hallux]

Supporting Android devices in a corporate environment is a bigger challenge than iOS. Until Google released the Android At Work tools there was no way to "sandbox" the email client unless you used a 3rd-party app in conjunction with the MDM solution. In the case of the company I deal with, they used an app called Email+ for that but it's up to the device administrators and security team to vet the apps and decide if they meet the requirements. They are now moving to Android at Work secured through MobileIron, using additional instances of the Google apps to manage email and such.

Depending on the size of the company, they may be using an Apple-centric (or even Apple-developed) MDM solution so supporting Android devices will be more of a challenge.