[ipad] Shared iPads - Time delay

[mhertz]

When using shared iPads there is a known time delay before it becomes available while the current users profile gets loaded. In our test environment, which has very little user documents and data, we have seen that it takes a few seconds. We determine it by seeing that the new users notes appear in just a matter of seconds.

 

The question is in regard to the hide and show application profile that we are implementing via the MDM.

This profiles hides all apps except for the ones we specify. This takes about an extra 25 seconds to happen. This is a long time and it is made worse that during this time all the apps are available and can be started and then in middle of the user using it it vanishes.The MDM said that this only happens in shared iPads and in regular one it just takes about 5 seconds. They said that this is happening because Apple does not process the hide apps command right away in shared iPads and maybe because it is still doing things in the background.

 

Has anyone had any experience doing this with shared iPads? Are they also experiencing delays?

 

Thanks

Steven

[Brimstone]

Why would you implement a profile with hide/show apps, just deploy the apps you want...?

[mhertz]

We would like to create a more personalized iPad experience and show apps specifically geared to the student logging in. This is in preschool and not all the children have the same skill sets.

[RLR]

We're just deploying the apps we need with a specific layout. We're not using the hide function so can't really help but our students are using the shared iPads from age 3 to 11. The younger years get help from teachers but it seems Year 1's are capable of logging in to their accounts fine after they've done it a few times.

[mhertz]

OK, thanks for sharing your experience.

 

Can you tell me if there was any technical challenges that you encountered.

 

Steven

[RLR]

One thing that caught me out was that the majority of apps don't actually support shared mode properly. By this I mean an app doesn't automatically save the app data to the students iCloud account unless you install it a specific way. This means if a students goes to use a different iPad, their work doesn't follow them. The only apps that I have found that support shared mode are Explain Everything and Book Creator. Both need to be installed with an app config file.

 

Explain everything is:

SharediPads

 

Book Creator is:

xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

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com.redjumper.mystorybook

0

Edited January 7, 2019 by RLR

[mhertz]

Thanks RLR for that valuable information.

 

By this I mean an app doesn't automatically save the app data to the students iCloud account unless you install it a specific way

You are right. I am also under that notion.

I thought that shared mode means that even though the apps would only save the data locally still it would be saved somehow(??) in the cloud and restored when that user would reload in.

 

Thanks for clarifying.

 

Steven