Apple School and Business Manager will soon support Google Workspace

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What you need to know

Apple has confirmed that its Apple School Manager and Apple Business Manager systems will soon support integration with Google Workspace.
People will be able to sign into their managed Apple ID using their Google Workspace account.

Apple has confirmed that it will soon allow people to integrate Apple School Manager and Apple Business Manager with Google Workspace identity services.

The move, which was announced as part of a wider education initiative, will allow Google Workspace administrators to enable integration with Apple's own device and account management systems. As a result, people will be able to sign into managed Apple ID accounts using their Google Workspace account, making everything easier for everyone.

Similar functionality is already available for businesses and schools that use Microsoft Azure Active Directory, but support for Google Workspace is now on the way, too.

Apple announced a new feature coming to Apple School Manager and Apple Business Manager: integration with Google Workspace identity services. Currently, Apple School Manager and Apple Business Manager support an integration with Microsoft Azure Active Directory. With this new integration, IT teams who use Google Workspace can experience the same benefits: directory sync and federated authentication. With directory sync, user records and Managed Apple IDs are created automatically, saving IT admins both time and effort. And with federated authentication, end users can sign in to their Managed Apple ID with their Google Workspace account, making for a seamless login experience to apps like Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Messages, FaceTime, and more.

Apple isn't saying exactly when administrators can expect the new Google Workspace integration to go live, but it did say that it will happen "this spring."

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.