Sharing iPads, Apple ID's question.

[mike86]

Hi All

 

We are planning sharing 24 iPads between our year 3 classes for the next school year so these won't be assigned to individual students as we have done in the past. I'm wondering if it is best to set up separate apple ID's for these devices or to share an apple id out to all of them, would this cause any problems when managing with meraki? We have library ipads doing this at the moment but they are not on the MDM, also if we want to use paid apps we buy multiple copies. Anyone done this before, I would be grateful of your suggestions.

 

Thanks

[Brimstone]

It you are going to manage these via an MDM you require an Apple ID per device, if you try sharing the Apple ID with Meraki you'll get into a mess.

 

I would use managed distribution licences in VPP, set the profile in Configurator with "allow modifying account settings" turned off so users can't sign out and you can silently deploy apps to iPads.

 

If you are not planning to deploy or order the iPads before Sept/Oct maybe worth waiting until Apple announce iOS9 which hopefully at the same time will mean deployment of apps and profiles via MDM without the dreaded Apple ID required on the iPad.

[mike86]

Thanks

 

These need to be set up for next term, so can't wait or the new iOS. Might be a stupid question, but if I turn off "allow modifying account settings" how will I log them in with their individual apple IDs, guessing I'll just do this before deploying the profile, or is there a better way?

[Brimstone]

Thanks

 

These need to be set up for next term, so can't wait or the new iOS. Might be a stupid question, but if I turn off "allow modifying account settings" how will I log them in with their individual apple IDs, guessing I'll just do this before deploying the profile, or is there a better way?

 

 

You would;

 

deploy/enroll MDM profile to iPad without restriction;

sign into each iPad;

edit profile in MDM.

[mike86]

Thanks again, this is the way I've been doing it previously (other than the "allow modifying account settings"), was hoping that I could get away with not having to make the 20 odd extra apple ID's & going through the pain of getting apple to put us on the whitelist. I've read that you can deploy apps with VPP to devices rather than an apple id with configurator, we do have a charge & sync trolley for these so should be straight forward, however on those days where you get the 8.00am call saying they need an app for the first lesson it might be a bit tricky. Do you have any experience of this? Edited July 9, 2015 by mike86

[kennysarmy]

Thanks again, this is the way I've been doing it previously (other than the "allow modifying account settings"), was hoping that I could get away with not having to make the 20 odd extra apple ID's & going through the pain of getting apple to put us on the whitelist. I've read that you can deploy apps with VPP to devices rather than an apple id with configurator, we do have a charge & sync trolley for these so should be straight forward, however on those days where you get the 8.00am call saying they need an app for the first lesson it might be a bit tricky. Do you have any experience of this?

 

My experience of being asked at 8 am for something required at 9 am is to say "No".....

[mike86]

My experience of being asked at 8 am for something required at 9 am is to say "No".....

 

Definitely with you on that, but a few clicks on Meraki after buying the apps takes mins & is worth it for staying in our JS good books (I like free alcohol).