Shared iPads using Apple Configurator 1.4 iOS7 Shortcomings

[lmgtfy]

Just interested in people's opinions about shared iPad's in schools. I see a few threads about people using them in this way and of course all the teachers have seen them when visiting whatever school they have recently gone to and judging by the amount of trolleys and storage boxes available to buy there must be a lot of school using iPad's as shared devices but why are Apple so poor at letting us use them in this way?

 

By this I mean I am happy to accept that I need to:

 

1. By an expensive trolley with sync facilities instead of just charge

2. By a Mac to go with this trolley

3. Let the devices effective wipe and setup each time they are plugged back in

4. Deal with the nightmare that is credit cards and volume app purchasing

5. Accept that the students can change whatever settings they want

6. Accept the fact that in a few taps they can reset the whole device back to factory settings

 

But really what would it take for Apple just to take away the little Settings icon that would prevent most of the above!

 

When I heard about iOS7 and the Activation lock I thought what an amazing idea but even this is turned off if you Supervise a device in Apple configurator what a joke. In a few taps a student can wipe the device pop it in their bag and we can't do anything about it in terms of tracking or preventing reuse. What a wasted feature that could have been so useful for schools.

 

Thanks Apple, love the hardware and the software to some extent, I know you want everyone to have their own device but you would sell a lot more to other schools if you just implemented a few simple things.

 

Rant over LOL this comes from two days of playing with 15 iPads. Has anyone managed to get around any of the above? We are using Meraki but didn't know if any of the paid for MDM's or profile manager have anyway to get around these shortcomings.

 

Cheers

[InterwebsGuy]

We share a lot of these woes.

 

I think we are starting to realise we need an MDM solution of some kind, as currently it is far too easy for the students to do what they please with them (as you allude to above). Apple Configurator is basically not up to the job for a school (and probably college) environment. I'm sure it's fine in enterprise business, where 90% of users may not be as hostile as students with the intentions of reseting things, setting pins, and whatnot 'just because they can'.

 

Edit to add: From what I read the Profile Manager included with OSX server is pretty good and makes up for a lot of AC shortcomings, but is a pig to set up. I think this is something we are going to look into over the coming weeks.

Edited October 31, 2013 by InterwebsGuy

[Meldrew]

But really what would it take for Apple just to take away the little Settings icon that would prevent most of the above!

 

When I heard about iOS7 and the Activation lock I thought what an amazing idea but even this is turned off if you Supervise a device in Apple configurator what a joke. In a few taps a student can wipe the device pop it in their bag and we can't do anything about it in terms of tracking or preventing reuse. What a wasted feature that could have been so useful for schools.

 

Thanks Apple, love the hardware and the software to some extent, I know you want everyone to have their own device but you would sell a lot more to other schools if you just implemented a few simple things.

 

Yep, Apple are very happy to push iPads in education, running summits and 'how to use iPads in lessons' courses, but can't get their developers to add a few simple features that would make them usable in this situation.

 

Also, your item 3, wipe and setup each time. Is this to ensure student A's work (or anything else) isn't still on there when student B uses it? I saw recently in PC Pro I think that after about 2 years, the flash memory in the iPads has pretty much had it, and that's with an iPad used at home - rather less than a school one I would have thought. Wouldn't wiping and setup cause the flash memory to die more quickly?

 

Thanks,

 

Meldrew

[lmgtfy]

Item 3 is just because its so easy for a student to change the homescreen layout, hide Apps, or just play around with the other 100 settings therefore making it unusable for the next student. Yes this is more a classroom management issue people may argue but what teacher says they have time to both checkout an iPad make sure they record who it was given too and the check every setting and condition when it is given back at the end of the lesson. Hopefully it won't effect the life of the iPad as it is an Apple approved method of deployment. Cheers

[InterwebsGuy]

Item 3 is just because its so easy for a student to change the homescreen layout, hide Apps, or just play around with the other 100 settings therefore making it unusable for the next student. Yes this is more a classroom management issue people may argue but what teacher says they have time to both checkout an iPad make sure they record who it was given too and the check every setting and condition when it is given back at the end of the lesson. Hopefully it won't effect the life of the iPad as it is an Apple approved method of deployment. Cheers

I think it's possible to turn off auto refresh in AC if this becomes an issue or irritation. I think I'd prefer it refresh the settings every time they are reconnected, however.

[SovietRussia]

I think it's possible to turn off auto refresh in AC if this becomes an issue or irritation. I think I'd prefer it refresh the settings every time they are reconnected, however.

 

You can, go go Preferences and untick the box "Refresh device every time it is connected"

[lmgtfy]

Yea seen this option but as @InterwebsGuy mentioned you have no choice but to "refresh" it everytime due to the lack of Apple restrictions

[KTECH]

I agree, the software COULD be a really handy tool and make the whole process of deploying iPads fairly manageable but the contant bugs with it is really starting to take it's toll on my time having to go back to Schools to fix lost supervision, app code errors and what ever else goes wrong with it. Surely for a company like Apple it shouldn't be that hard for them to just make it work as it should, right? lol. And yes an extra restriction to stop them going into Settings would be a god send!