Seriously Apple! Enough!

[Pottsey]

I would have to stand up and say that We don't seem to have those problems here. We have approx. 140 iPads and have just rolled out 65 to staff so that they can prepare for our 1-1 deployment next Easter.

 

We sen them all home with the staff to create their own Apple ID, having prepared it in Configurator to enrol with Meraki and a crib sheet of very step by step instructions on how to set up their school email (exchange) and link their apple ID to the schools fro app deployment. They set up their iCloud account first as that way they are not asked for their credit card details, then when they go into the app store they can click "none" when they are asked for them.

 

I'm not saying that there were no prblems and teething issues but they were mainly user related and easily fixed. I cant say I even looked at profile manager as an option but meraki is free and had the adaptability that I was looking for.

 

Steve

We have no option for none in the app store and do not have a credit card leaving us stuck in a loop. The free app trick seems hit and miss. We also had the proxy problem of you cannot add/change the proxy settings until the iPad has been activated but you need those proxy settings to activate the Ipad.

Edited June 4, 2014 by Pottsey

[caffrey]

The head attended some head teachers conference and there was some speaker advocating the use of iPads in schools, this is where ours started out..

 

Problem with iPads etc. is that I feel blind to as what's going on - there's no tools to ensure safeguarding. I've spent time blocking ports and stuff trying to get a solution to stop certain traffic and I've no idea if its effective or not, the only time I know something is happening is when a teacher says something to me. This is aggravated with BYOD.

 

We didn't go android as this is what the head wanted - but now she's asking if we can have androids too...

[edutech4schools]

Is this continued Apple push coming from above, then? From head teachers etc. being talked into thinking that iPads specifically are the way forward?

 

I will normally get asked to purchase some more ipads by the head or business manager but I then remind them we use Android, unless they want me to start installing ipads, at which point they reply 'thats what I mean, that tablet thing we like, we need more'. A lot of staff call anything tablet sized an ipad which does cause confusion.

 

Our LA got all the schools together as they had a head teacher that had moved his school over 100% to 1-2-1 ipads and he stood in this massive hall and said how wonderful the ipads had been and they had removed all laptops etc from the school. The head did not answer technical questions as he was not involved in the setup and not very technical. I was really enthused by his speech and contacted the schools Network Manager directly to see if I could visit the school and was shocked to find out they had not actually migrated to ipads but had tested then with a class. So you have the LA pushing ipads on all the schools based on a project that was still being tested. This was over a year ago and I know of a number of schools that purchased ipads directly of the back of that speech.

Edited June 4, 2014 by edutech4schools

[abillybob]

I will normally get asked to purchase some more ipads by the head or business manager but I then remind them we use Android, unless they want me to start installing ipads, at which point they reply 'thats what I mean, that tablet thing we like, we need more'. A lot of staff call anything tablet sized an ipad which does cause confusion.

 

Our LA got all the schools together as they had a head teacher that had moved his school over 100% to 1-2-1 ipads and he stood in this massive hall and said how wonderful the ipads had been and they had removed all laptops etc from the school. The head did not answer technical questions as he was not involved in the setup and not very technical. I was really enthused by his speech and contacted the schools Network Manager directly to see if I could visit the school and was shocked to find out they had not actually migrated to ipads but had tested then with a class. So you have the LA pushing ipads on all the schools based on a project that was still being tested. This was over a year ago and I know of a number of schools that purchased ipads directly of the back of that speech.

 

Our LA discourage the use of anything Apple and rightly so. They have to many problems with these devices and it takes up over 70% of their workload trying to get them working for school with regarding proxy issues. It seems we never asked advice from county but instead took the plunge and went all in for Apple kit, problem being it's now me paying the price.

 

I have also heard that Telford & Wrekin's council (near us) discourages the use of Apple devices, in fact one of the guys at our Apple support told me he had a meeting with the head of ICT in the council who started the meeting by saying "I just would like to say I don't like Apple devices and won't be encouraging them in our schools now please continue"

[AMLinington]

LearnPad - The Tablet Computer Designed for Education

 

Seriously amazing at managing android devices. You can change entire desktop with folders and apps from SEN to KS1 in seconds from either the management software or the pupils can do it themselves by scanning a bar code. Lovely bit of software.

 

Although as another poster has pointed out, possibly not currently suited to a KS3+ environment. I'm thinking of an 'Android Enterprise' edition with all your favourite features supported - filtering of SSH, proxy support, apps referencing global proxy settings etc. Remote management is only half the battle, the other half is getting applications written to support things like sending requests without the 100-continue header and referencing global proxy settings rather than attempting direct connections.Dedicated enterprise apps stores containing Education-friendly applications that don't keep asking for money for every little feature.

 

What method?

 

Old fashioned stoning-by-idevice?

 

The next major version of Android will have more features designed for enterprises. There should be more details at Google I/O later this month.

 

Rumor: Android's L Release To Make Corporate Adoption Push With Partial Wipe Capability, Other Security Features

 

Sounds promising although the partial wipe and remote control of an Android device already exists where the organisation is using Google apps and Google mail - part of the reason I won't put work related content on my personal phone - group policy and remote management tools have to be installed on my phone allowing my network admins the rights to access and wipe my phone so it will be interesting to see if these features are dependant on the organisation using Google apps.

[mthomas08]

I will normally get asked to purchase some more ipads by the head or business manager but I then remind them we use Android, unless they want me to start installing ipads, at which point they reply 'thats what I mean, that tablet thing we like, we need more'. A lot of staff call anything tablet sized an ipad which does cause confusion.

 

I have recently seen a massive drop in this old effect, people are starting to notice Tablets more. This is through a lot of things though like Tesco getting involved and now many other companies. Just had the business manager start talking to me about what Argos are offering and I noticed that even Novatech offer their own brand. When I met Parents on our open evening many of them seemed to know what Tablets are. I will say this for Apple they started something simple and easy to use and other companies simply offered better costs. With more and more stores offering Tablets and even their own brands the Tablet world is no longer iPad.

 

Been using a Google Nexus with a Bluetooth keyboard and it cost a lot less than an iPad but I use it for the exact same thing minus iTunes sync with my iPhone. That is on my laptop which I use for big documentation because the Google Apps is still nothing compared to M$ Office. So after all this technology I still use my PC for the occasional game, laptop for Office/Work/syncing to my iPhone and Google Nexus for skiing on the internet/Apps basic docs.

Edited June 4, 2014 by mthomas08

[Jasbo]

It's not the tablet that should be the focus but how to "mobilise" your services and look at securing/. Monitoring services and not devices - in my opinion, so eventually the end goal for me is the device doesn't matter.

 

Personally I find iPads work rather well with my mainly ms services especially now we get ms office 365 free for kids, I don't thank apple for much of that - I think ms have/are doing a good job of providing apps / services that are a good experience on iPad.

[Stevecee]

We have no option for none in the app store and do not have a credit card leaving us stuck in a loop. The free app trick seems hit and miss. We also had the proxy problem of you cannot add/change the proxy settings until the iPad has been activated but you need those proxy settings to activate the Ipad.

 

if you set up your apple Id by enrolling in iCloud first it doesn't ask for credit card, then if you move across to the app store you get the "none option" (both on iPad)

 

You can install the proxy settings via configurator and it should work!

 

HTH

 

Steve

[Edu-IT]

You can add a card and then immediately remove it, so if you can get hold of a prepaid MasterCard or something, then that would work?

[abillybob]

You can add a card and then immediately remove it, so if you can get hold of a prepaid MasterCard or something, then that would work?

Yes. There are work around but it's the annoyance of the whole process. The fact Apple had the ability to make the whole thing a lot easier but haven't is where I'm finding the frustration comes from. Yes you can add a credit card and remove it but that adds up to be a lot of wasted time if say you have an AppleID for every iPad in MDM when Apple could have just not asked for the credit card in the first place!

[Edu-IT]

Is the payment method to verify you're in UK/US etc?

[seawolf]

On this point, my experience is that it is normal. I bought an i7 Mac Mini "Server" in 2012 and it absolutely crawled! Not to mention the fact they call it a server...

 

Your experience in this case is NOT normal. I have had many OSX Servers over many years with several of them being Mac Minis. They do not crawl.

 

One caveat though - if you are using them on .local domain - all bets are off. Don't do that. Really. If you have a .local domain and aren't willing to change it, best to not even bother with Macs in particular, but Apple gear in general. You are creating a rod for your own back. Use ANYTHING other than a .local domain and it is smooth sailing. Like night and day. I do suspect the common use of "best practice" .local domains are the big cause of a many of the gripes about Apple I hear on here. So, I repeat. If you have a .local domain and won't/can't change it be prepared for pain. Don't blame the Apple gear for that pain though. Apple themselves and any Apple-savvy tech will tell you to never use .local domains.

[seawolf]

Yes. There are work around but it's the annoyance of the whole process. The fact Apple had the ability to make the whole thing a lot easier but haven't is where I'm finding the frustration comes from. Yes you can add a credit card and remove it but that adds up to be a lot of wasted time if say you have an AppleID for every iPad in MDM when Apple could have just not asked for the credit card in the first place!

 

Yes, but Microsoft does the same thing.

 

"In order to register on the Windows Store you need to be 18 years of age or the age of majority in your location and have a Microsoft Account and have a credit card account."

 

I agree it is stupid and a pain in the rear. However, all of the App stores out there (Apple, Windows, Google) were designed specifically with a consumer focus, not a business or education focus. And that's where it all falls down for us.

[seawolf]

I have to step in and back this up we have an i7 Mac Mini here with server on it. After around a yeah of use the thing was unusable, no reason for it from what I or the Apple Technician could see even a hardware scan didn't bring up any problems. I took the plunge this year and installed a fresh version of Mavericks onto it and now it works like a charm ultra fast! Don't really know what happened before but then again it wasn't me that put it in in the first place it was another technician, who from my experience wasn't the best at his job.

 

Do you, by chance, use a .local domain?

Edited June 4, 2014 by seawolf

[seawolf]

On the other side, Apple could really help here with better app management - blacklist apps etc. as it goes we can see what apps have been installed but if they haven't been installed by VPP or MDM you can only just stare at it and report it.

 

You might want to look at the MobilEther MDM solution by iBoss. With the iBoss MDM/ Web Filter solution, you can remove the default App Store from the iPad replacing it with a filtered version, and also blacklist certain apps so that they either cannot be installed or removing network access until the app is removed (user is informed and is effective no matter what network the user tries to take the iPad onto). MobilEther also provides the capability to tie devices to web filtering that goes wherever the device goes on any network, including 3G/4G.

[caffrey]

That looks good, but again relying on third party for something that should be in apples MDM , it's yet another hidden cost on iPad rollout

[abillybob]

Do you, by chance, use a .local domain?

 

Nope .internal

 

Yes, but Microsoft does the same thing.

 

"In order to register on the Windows Store you need to be 18 years of age or the age of majority in your location and have a Microsoft Account and have a credit card account."

 

I agree it is stupid and a pain in the rear. However, all of the App stores out there (Apple, Windows, Google) were designed specifically with a consumer focus, not a business or education focus. And that's where it all falls down for us.

 

I never said Microsoft and others don't do this, but at least from what I can see Microsoft are working on a way around this for businesses and education and will be creating work arounds, lets hope they do it a lot better than Apple VPP program.

[edublogger]

We've rolled out a couple of hundred iPads and while I completely agree that Apple's iPad management options leave something to be desired -- read between the lines -- you can get it to work acceptably with some work.

 

** Shameless self-promotion **

 

I've put together a load a articles on how we manage iPads. It covers VPP as well as other aspects of iPad management. A lot of schools have found them useful.

 

Let me know if it helps you out in any way.

[localzuk]

Nope, we had a proper domain .schXXX I believe.

 

It wasn't the serving of accounts that was the slow bit - it was the responsiveness of the actual hardware itself. Copying a file from one disk to the other would give speeds of less than 30Mbps, which is ridiculous. Opening the Server.app was slow for example.

[Arthur]

It wasn't the serving of accounts that was the slow bit - it was the responsiveness of the actual hardware itself. Copying a file from one disk to the other would give speeds of less than 30Mbps, which is ridiculous. Opening the Server.app was slow for example.

Did you consider upgrading the drive(s) yourself? The ones Apple supply are slow.

 

The first thing I would have done is replace the system drive with an SSD and add an SSHD in the other drive bay.

[localzuk]

Did you consider upgrading the drive(s) yourself? The ones Apple supply are slow.

 

The first thing I would have done is replace the system drive with an SSD and add an SSHD in the other drive bay.

 

We had just spent near enough £1k on this little box. We had no intention of spending more on it, as it was only supporting 20 iMacs.

[abillybob]

We've rolled out a couple of hundred iPads and while I completely agree that Apple's iPad management options leave something to be desired -- read between the lines -- you can get it to work acceptably with some work.

 

** Shameless self-promotion **

 

I've put together a load a articles on how we manage iPads. It covers VPP as well as other aspects of iPad management. A lot of schools have found them useful.

 

Let me know if it helps you out in any way.

 

The guides look good I'm sure someone will find them very useful thank you for posting. Our iPads work very well here anyway it's just the whole process is a bit of a faff and could be made a lot easier. That my problem with it all anyway!

[klingklang]

Just about to embark on the "shiny shiny" Ipad journey . I've some arriving later today to give to teachers to take home and use with a view in September to deploying a further 50 across school. We are looking at 1-1 throughout school next summer but i guess alot will depend on how things go before then. We have Lightspeed filtering which looked very good at a conference i attended but since BT Lancs CC got their hands on it they seem to have broken the flexibility but early days yet .

[3s-gtech]

Did you consider upgrading the drive(s) yourself? The ones Apple supply are slow.

 

The first thing I would have done is replace the system drive with an SSD and add an SSHD in the other drive bay.

 

^^Agreed on the above - our little Mac Mini server is fairly old now (2010) and it can crawl a bit with the 5400RPM drives. Tempted to whack a pair of SSDs in there now that no files are kept on it, along with more RAM.

[caffrey]

Here's an example of why I find iPads trying

Year 7s needed an app for a lesson, okay it should've been requested earlier to give us more time - but you would think it would be as simple as downloading the (free) app and pushing it out to those devices *except* they are under 13 and don't have itunes accounts, so they have to bring them individually to us for apps to be installed - this caused disruption to the lesson. Okay with better planning this could've been avoided but it's so frustrating.