[Stratoscope]

I remember when I worked at an Alphabet company and they offered the option of using your personal phone to sign in to work stuff. (It wasn't Slack, it was one of the seventeen different chat systems they had going at the time.)

There was a teensy-weensy little caveat: Google IT could wipe your personal device at any time!

No thanks.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

That's... odd. Was this a long time ago? Because these days Android has work profiles that specifically exist to let you shove work stuff in its own separate space that can be managed separately from the rest of the device, and Google itself not using the feature that they built into the OS to support that exact situation would seem really weird.

[rwiggins]

Google does use Android work profiles - if you have an Android device. Unfortunately, iOS doesn't really have an equivalent concept (e: see comment below), so device-wide privileges are necessary there.

Everyone has their own level of comfort, of course. I've worked for two employers now whom I've given the power to erase my personal iPhone in exchange for the convenience of not needing to lug around a second phone.

Disclosure: I work at Google; opinions are my own.

[saagarjha]

iOS has user enrollment which is broadly equivalent: https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/user-enrollment-a.... Google does not adopt this (but it could, b/234963918).

[rwiggins]

Oh, thanks for the link. Looks like I'm out of date. Seems to be a relatively newish feature (~2020), but on the surface that does seem ideal. I haven't dug into the specifics, so I'm not sure if there's a gap preventing its use or if it's just a matter of priorities.

[saagarjha]

I don't have any real insight into this but my guess would be that enterprise stuff moves slowly and often has complaints about the new solution not having all the management features they used to use.

[Stratoscope]

Yeah, it was a while ago, and it's possible that I could be remembering some details wrong. It just struck me as "no, I would rather carry a separate work phone if I have to."

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Oh yeah, given that choice I would, and have, done the same! I just thought it was a mostly solved problem these days (but would like to know if not)

[inferiorhuman]

Yeah BlackBerry 10 had a similar feature called BlackBerry Balance. Still I'd rather carry two separate phones.

[macintux]

That’s a widespread problem. I worked for a dramatically smaller IT firm and it also gave employees the opportunity to register their phones with the company’s Exchange service; when I asked my boss whether we should warn them about the power that gave us, he felt it would just cause unnecessary alarm.

[idontpost]

Your boss was an asshole.

[bryanrasmussen]

well, probably, but maybe it meant that while it gave the power to do this he would never do it. However one should never say never in business, so maybe naive.

[sofixa]

At least on Android, adding a corporate account explicitly lists what access you're giving to the corporate administrators.