New APIs in Apple’s latest iPhone OS make probable a new experience for network administrators: the capacity to list, secure, and control the iPhone and iPod touch as enterprise devices and to do so for 100s or 1000s of them. With Monday’s launch of iOS 4, Apple offered hooks and on-board Mobile Device Management Service (MFMS) that, for the exceptional, let third-party device management applications access information directly on the iPhone 4, and exercise direct over it.

Once, there have been two basic choices. One is the management and security offered by Microsoft Exchange Server, through Apple’s extended but still limited support for Exchange Active Sync. The second is Apple’s iPhone Configuration program 2.0, launched in mid-2009. This version launched some much required figures but fell short of full-scale end-to-end system for managing the handsets, data, and users.