iPads, Shared device, multiple users... iOS 9.3

[bwestlake]

I shall just leave this link below:

 

Education - Preview - Apple

 

Seams apple have been listening to what people (education) want!

[asc]

Was very excited when I read this. However as a friend of mine correctly pointed out.... what happens with a whole school of accounts?! 1000 profile images on the home page of each and every iPad

Hopefully can be separated by class, year group etc

[dloudon96]

Hopefully it might intergrate with AD and bring up a 'login' box, that's what I'm hoping anyway haha, we only have around 400 students in our school, but still, it'll be a long process to search for one user or class.

[flyinghaggis]

I'm guessing apple will allow schools to bulk create apple IDs and arrange them into classes somehow. I dont expect they'll ever link into AD though as they'd probably rather try and cut Microsoft out of the process and I can't see them allowing AD to link into apple IDs? Seems like it's not in their interest from a business point of view to do that so I'm guessing they won't.

 

Knowing apple I suspect it won't link into any other companies systems or products in the way we're hoping for as that isn't normally their approach.

 

Keen to see what they offer though as we desperately need better ways to manage the hundreds of shared iPads we have on site here now.

Edited January 14, 2016 by flyinghaggis

[dloudon96]

I spent the full 6 weeks holidays creating 265 Apple ID's so we already have that part done. We have iMacs and students login to their domain user account from the Mac Side, so i'm assuming that must be linked to AD some how, it would be good if they would do that same thing with the iPads though.

 

It's exactly the same as us, we have 265 iPads and I asked Meraki how much it would be to get their full MDM solution with the updates and allow us to deploy apps and set the iOS 9 restrictions up etc, they quoted me around £10,000!! I certainly wouldn't be paying that price.

[Tammie]

Thanks for posting the link @bwestlake I have emailed them for more info. I am interested to know if our 100+ iPads that were bought a couple of years ago (before you needed any verification from your reseller) will be acceptable!

 

Just when I thought I knew how exactly I was going to manage them, it changes again ...

[sparkeh]

I emailed them with a list of questions. The reply was to look at the website :/

[Quackers]

Well i've just logged into my Apple Developer account and there is a beta of OS X Server 5.1 with the following notes. So guessing the other MDMs will start to have these options soon.

 

What’s New In OS X Server 5.1

• Support for new Education features in iOS 9.3

Profile Manager

• Support for Shared iPad

- Configure Shared iPad

- Some settings can be applied to specific users on a Shared iPad: Home Screen Layout, Notifications, Restrictions and Safari AutoFill

- New commands: Force User Logout, Enable/Disable Lost Mode, Get Device Location

• Support for Classroom - Create classes

- Configure Classroom

• New payloads (supervised only): Notifications; Lock Screen Message

• New Restrictions (supervised only): Allow Apple Music; Allow Radio; Allow Notifications Modification; Apps Shown on Home Screen

• New Restrictions: Allow iCloud Photo Library

[Edu-IT]

I emailed them with a list of questions. The reply was to look at the website :/

They sent me a PDF. Did they you?

[sparkeh]

They sent me a PDF. Did they you?

 

Oh sorry yeah they did. But that seemed to just contain the details on the website.

[steewy]

They sent me a PDF too. They also said they will email me when they are looking for beta testers.

So far I installed IOS 9.3 on one iPad but I can't test the multi users until the admin portal is released.

[Tammie]

I asked an Apple tech at BETT if he thought this would work with iPad 2, he said unlikely if they were 16GB ones (the majority of ours are). Anyone heard/think different?

[NB9457]

I asked an Apple tech at BETT if he thought this would work with iPad 2, he said unlikely if they were 16GB ones (the majority of ours are). Anyone heard/think different?

 

I think they may be supported up until maybe iOS 10, they seem to kill them off on the big updates, but I'd be expecting to replace them soon. They've had a decent run, but they are getting on the slow side now.

[sidewinder]

I asked an Apple tech at BETT if he thought this would work with iPad 2, he said unlikely if they were 16GB ones (the majority of ours are). Anyone heard/think different?

 

As mentioned I wouldn't expect them to be supported for much longer, but not sure why the capacity would matter. Apple always support (or don't) things by generation not capacity

[Tammie]

He said in order to have the multiple profiles there would be some data stored locally on the device, so the storage space was an issue.

[Brimstone]

Some ASE's were given a private preview by Apple at BETT, this was just a presentation by a chap from Cupertino what follows is a short summary of what he mentioned to us although he wouldn't be drawn on some of the technical aspects as yet..

 

Apple's new edu tools will not ship at the same time as iOS9.3, they are being beta tested over the summer and are due to arrive in Autumn.

It's likely that most cached data on the iPad will be local rather than Cloud as he said the minimum spec to use iPad Shared devices maybe 32GB

You will have to have an MDM in place for these new tools to work.

Apple are working with SIS in the US which will allow a CSV Upload for automatic creation of school managed Apple iD's, he said they are at early stages on this, here's hoping they can do the same with SIMM's here.

 

Not much extra I know but all the same looking very promising

[Tammie]

Thanks for passing that on @Brimstone, that's useful to know.

[StevieM]

Apple are working with SIS in the US which will allow a CSV Upload for automatic creation of school managed Apple iD's, he said they are at early stages on this, here's hoping they can do the same with SIMM's here.

 

Or at least a csv export from AD.