GSuite - Deploy Andriod Apps to Devices not Users

[mowgli82]

Hi Guys,

 

It is possible to deploy Android Apps to devices (chromebooks) rather than users?

 

We are starting to deploy a number of apps to the Chromebooks but annoyingly it installs the apps for each student that logs in rather than the device itself. This means it takes a minute or two for the apps to appear for a first time logon. Is there a way around this?

 

Thanks

Simon

[PotNoodleTech]

Yeh I was looking at this last week too. It appears that you can only allocate against users and so as you said it installs the app on user logon not per PC.

 

This is silly, we should have the option to do both - I want teacher chromebooks to have one set of apps and pupil chromebooks to have a different set of apps.

[mowgli82]

Yeh I was looking at this last week too. It appears that you can only allocate against users and so as you said it installs the app on user logon not per PC.

 

This is silly, we should have the option to do both - I want teacher chromebooks to have one set of apps and pupil chromebooks to have a different set of apps.

 

Yeh, I thought as much, i might log a feature request or something with Google. My concern is 30 Chromebooks all pulling apps at the same time... it's not going to take many apps before the wireless gets saturated or the user experience suffers..

[rogerdnixon]

Android apps are installed on a per-user basis. So you can push different apps to different users depending on what OU they are in. The options are to make the app appear in the PlayStore, force install and pin to shelf.

 

If you force install apps - then different users sign into the same device - then the app should be cached on the device (assuming its the current version). However, it will still need installing.

 

Android works very differently to Windows in this respect. Generally, I would not recommend using Android apps on ChromeOS outside of a 1:1 scenario unless you don't wipe user data and sharing is restricted to a couple of users per device. If you wipe user data on logoff (come in multiuser setups), then the space for apps may be very limited depending on the storage on the device.

 

Basically multiuser single install of android apps does not exist as a thing.

[peej2k]

At the moment it is per user, but I'm reliably informed that per device is in the Chrome OS pipeline!

[crdacosta]

Good to know that per device install is planned

[PotNoodleTech]

Theres a few things they need to shove into the chrome pipeline, per device rules with a refreshed less confused admin interface is the main one!

[rogerdnixon]

There are already device policies that you can apply to devices in a specific OU and has been as long as we have use ChromeOS devices (about 7 years). I don't think per device apps will ever happen as that would require fundermentally changing Android. The trial we have just finished was about device caching apps - removing the need to download them everytime. This might be what people are referring to. This only works on force installed apps and I don't think its generally out yet.

 

There is new stuff coming regarding device management - but all NDA I'm afraid - so cannot say more - watch this space.

[mowgli82]

There are already device policies that you can apply to devices in a specific OU and has been as long as we have use ChromeOS devices (about 7 years). I don't think per device apps will ever happen as that would require fundermentally changing Android. The trial we have just finished was about device caching apps - removing the need to download them everytime. This might be what people are referring to. This only works on force installed apps and I don't think its generally out yet.

 

There is new stuff coming regarding device management - but all NDA I'm afraid - so cannot say more - watch this space.

 

Cached apps would be fine, is there a rough time scale for this?

 

Thanks

[rogerdnixon]

I don't have a timescale - I'd follow the G Suite update blog - these things get announced there.