Apple announces brand new iPadOS

[Brimstone]

IMHO the education sector is a subset of the enterprise space. Apple promotes their kit quite heavily at the education sector, but seems to want to try and do it with consumer-grade kit (albeit market-leading consumer-grade kit). Those other brands you've mentioned will be pushing products that already have well established enterprise tools (Windows and Chrome). If it wasn't for G Suite, I doubt many schools would be bothering with Chromebooks.

...and there are well established enterprise tools for both macOS and iOS at the last count nearly 400 different MDM/MAM/ management solutions, many of these vendors offer education solutions as well.

[Brimstone]

Connecting to any of the millions of non-wireless connected displays in the country eg. HDMI or VGA. The vast majority of schools do not have wireless screens to connect to. We'd have to completely rethink how we set up classrooms if we switched to iPad Pro devices.

Oh dear, we have to completely rethink everything....

 

it's called a HDMI/VGA Adaptor, about £40.00 for an iPad, having said that most of my schools have Airplay in most forms, AppleTV, Airserver etc.

 

It's called planning for new technology and IT in classrooms

[DalekSec]

Oh dear, we have to completely rethink everything....

 

it's called a HDMI/VGA Adaptor, about £40.00 for an iPad, having said that most of my schools have Airplay in most forms, AppleTV, Airserver etc.

 

It's called planning for new technology and IT in classrooms

 

For the vast majority of school this is just too much work. If you have a brand new network then sure go ahead but for those with windows across the board the training of staff alone is a huge work load let alone infrastructure work.

 

£40 is ridiculously expensive for an adaptor, if you have 100 staff (which we do) that's already £4k just for adaptors!

 

We have surfaces here and they do everything the iPad pros do and more and we didn't have to go and spend £40 on a adaptor or around £100 for a Apple TV in each room. Plus staff didn't need training on them as it's the same as their old laptops but with a touch screen pretty much!

 

Don't get me wrong i would love to have iPad Pros they are easier to manage than Windows devices, but the training, cost and upheaval of the physical infrastructure would be a big ask for little benefit if any!

 

It may work for your schools but that doesn't mean it works for everyone and everyone should do it.

[localzuk]

Oh dear, we have to completely rethink everything....

 

it's called a HDMI/VGA Adaptor, about £40.00 for an iPad, having said that most of my schools have Airplay in most forms, AppleTV, Airserver etc.

 

It's called planning for new technology and IT in classrooms

£40 for an adapter is ridiculous. All my Windows devices have HDMI built in. A micro USB to HDMI lead is a fiver for Android devices etc...

 

When schools have their sites set up, we have to justify change. I simply cannot see how moving to a more expensive device with less functionally than our existing Windows devices is an improvement...

 

Apple have even recognised their devices are too limited, which is why they're forking iOS, and adding mouse support and a proper file manager.

[Guest Guest]

We use Reflector, it turns your pc into an Airplay compatible device no need for any adapters

[localzuk]

We use Reflector, it turns your pc into an Airplay compatible device no need for any adapters

Indeed, but now you're running 2 computers... The iPad and the PC.

[DrBeaker]

*sighs*

 

When are IT people going to realise that Apple are not in the "enterprise" space and have not been for years...thats why they don't provide an MDM. I don't hear people moaning that Samsung, Lenovo, Acer etc don't have their own MDM solution.

 

So the term "Pro" in "iPad Pro" you wouldn't equate to a 'professional' device then? A LOT of 3rd party management tools for iPads are essentially useless for us as they can only work around the limitations of the OS they are managing - which is an Apple limitation. I'm by no means an Apple or iPad expert, but whether it was iPhone/iPad configurator, Meraki, Lightspeed etc all had workarounds for things that should just work properly.

 

E.g. Active Directory, GPOs etc work very well with .... Windows OS's

 

Connecting to any of the millions of non-wireless connected displays in the country eg. HDMI or VGA. The vast majority of schools do not have wireless screens to connect to. We'd have to completely rethink how we set up classrooms if we switched to iPad Pro devices.

 

Yep. We too have an awful lot of kit that has no in-built wireless functions.

 

Oh dear, we have to completely rethink everything....

 

it's called a HDMI/VGA Adaptor, about £40.00 for an iPad, having said that most of my schools have Airplay in most forms, AppleTV, Airserver etc.

 

It's called planning for new technology and IT in classrooms

 

Fair enough and that's a very valid point. However where's the money coming from for these adapters? Versus about £20-30 for a VGA splitter and some VGA cables? That setup will outlive most of the kit it's connected to. I have some VGA splitters that are probably 10x years old and are still working.

 

Schools aren't designed with servers, IT etc in mind. I know some plans for schools I've seen or heard from other IT colleagues - they didn't plan for the server room!

I know one school that had Macs in the clasrooms and Apple TVs. Due to the number of complaints we replaced them with AIO units, never got another complaint again.

 

For the vast majority of school this is just too much work. If you have a brand new network then sure go ahead but for those with windows across the board the training of staff alone is a huge work load let alone infrastructure work.

 

£40 is ridiculously expensive for an adaptor, if you have 100 staff (which we do) that's already £4k just for adaptors!

 

We have surfaces here and they do everything the iPad pros do and more and we didn't have to go and spend £40 on a adaptor or around £100 for a Apple TV in each room. Plus staff didn't need training on them as it's the same as their old laptops but with a touch screen pretty much!

 

Don't get me wrong i would love to have iPad Pros they are easier to manage than Windows devices, but the training, cost and upheaval of the physical infrastructure would be a big ask for little benefit if any!

 

It may work for your schools but that doesn't mean it works for everyone and everyone should do it.

 

I've replaced some software-based screen sharing systems that were setup and unreliable, with hardware-based ones and I've not had any problems with them since.

 

£40 for an adapter is ridiculous. All my Windows devices have HDMI built in. A micro USB to HDMI lead is a fiver for Android devices etc...

 

When schools have their sites set up, we have to justify change. I simply cannot see how moving to a more expensive device with less functionally than our existing Windows devices is an improvement...

 

Apple have even recognised their devices are too limited, which is why they're forking iOS, and adding mouse support and a proper file manager.

 

Agree.

[3s-gtech]

I thought the trend had shifted away from iPads in schools (the constant noise about it back in 2011/2012 was deafening) to Chromebooks and Surfaces. Serious use of iPads in schools always seemed like a case of square peg and round hole, at great expense.

 

We bought a few sets of iPads, they’ve worked well and are still going years on. They were never a replacement for anything though.

[RLR]

I thought the trend had shifted away from iPads in schools (the constant noise about it back in 2011/2012 was deafening) to Chromebooks and Surfaces. Serious use of iPads in schools always seemed like a case of square peg and round hole, at great expense.

 

We bought a few sets of iPads, they’ve worked well and are still going years on. They were never a replacement for anything though.

 

We joke about our iPads in the IT department. We're a 1:1 school and also 2:1 in our younger schools using shared iPad mode (manage about 1400 iPads). We call them Google iPads as they're pretty much used to access Google apps (google classroom, google drive, google mail). There are a lot of other apps that are used like kahoot, quizlet, Notability (big one). I think they're really good devices and a lot has changed over the last couple of years to make them more manageable but just feel apple are a bit behind on things. Apple Classwork is nowhere near as good as Google Classroom.

 

We spend quite a bit on dongles as all our classrooms have Lightning to HDMI adaptors and a PC with Airserver installed. The adaptor is more of a backup if Airserver isn't working. They also go missing quite a lot!

[Brimstone]

I thought the trend had shifted away from iPads in schools (the constant noise about it back in 2011/2012 was deafening) to Chromebooks and Surfaces. Serious use of iPads in schools always seemed like a case of square peg and round hole, at great expense.

 

We bought a few sets of iPads, they’ve worked well and are still going years on. They were never a replacement for anything though.

 

I very much doubt that....

 

https://digit.fyi/glasgow-digital-education-strategy-ipads/

 

Schools who actually engage with a specialist are very successful with iPads. Those that don't engage or refuse and buy them from a reseller that just wants to shift tin at the cheapest price and knows next to nothing nothing about teaching and learning in a digital classroom environment will never make any impact with new technology. They just move onto the next "silver bullet" they think will solve everything.

 

I've been part of a team that just won a big deal, the school interviewed all the resellers about their experience and background and although we were more expensive we won this because we understand the needs better than anyone else.

[Brimstone]

So the term "Pro" in "iPad Pro" you wouldn't equate to a 'professional' device then? A LOT of 3rd party management tools for iPads are essentially useless for us as they can only work around the limitations of the OS they are managing - which is an Apple limitation. I'm by no means an Apple or iPad expert, but whether it was iPhone/iPad configurator, Meraki, Lightspeed etc all had workarounds for things that should just work properly.

 

E.g. Active Directory, GPOs etc work very well with .... Windows OS's.

I can see you are by no means an Apple or iPad expert, because most better MDM's you mention even Lightspeed connect fine to AD for user authentication of devices a 1:1 iPad project, that's how I can run a student deployment day e.g. 195 x iPads done in one morning, I touched about 3 iPads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fair enough and that's a very valid point. However where's the money coming from for these adapters? Versus about £20-30 for a VGA splitter and some VGA cables? That setup will outlive most of the kit it's connected to. I have some VGA splitters that are probably 10x years old and are still working.

 

Not every teacher is going to need an adaptor, in fact most don't. Why on earth you would want to connect to a monitor, when you have a wireless screen in the classroom anyway.

[3s-gtech]

All valid points, though the cost of engaging a specialist is not something that most schools will factor in. “We already have a tech. They can show us how to use them!”

 

On topic: I think about 2 of our 100+ iPads are actually new enough to run this new OS anyway

[DalekSec]

All valid points, though the cost of engaging a specialist is not something that most schools will factor in. “We already have a tech. They can show us how to use them!”

 

On topic: I think about 2 of our 100+ iPads are actually new enough to run this new OS anyway

 

Same have 50ish iPads only 10 of them can run latest OS! We are pushing BYOD hard so hopefully they will be gone by end of next academic year

[DrBeaker]

I can see you are by no means an Apple or iPad expert, because most better MDM's you mention even Lightspeed connect fine to AD for user authentication of devices a 1:1 iPad project, that's how I can run a student deployment day e.g. 195 x iPads done in one morning, I touched about 3 iPads.

 

 

As the Apple expert then - you can appreciate that most MDMs have updated or changed over time. The ones I used at the time were setup by someone else, who's to say they had any training in how to set it up or even did it properly? Whose to say what they told me to do, was correct?

 

Not every teacher is going to need an adaptor, in fact most don't. Why on earth you would want to connect to a monitor, when you have a wireless screen in the classroom anyway.

 

Who stated there was wireless displays in every classroom? Some of us techs on here don't have the luxury of having the most up-to-date equipment and have no choice but to continue to use old equipment for real-world financial reasons.

 

An iPad or Apple TV to cast the iPad to - versus a cheap projector, TV or god-forbid a few cheap VGA monitors and a VGA splitter - we're good to go for probably 5x years. Compared to the TCO of Apple devices that have planned obsolescence built into them? For the price of 1x room setup for an iPad user I could stretch that funding out for 3x classrooms instead of 1x.

 

Most techs I imagine haven't had the luxury either to go on expensive paid training course for Apple MDM management solutions. We've had to figure it out all by ourselves - normally at our own expense and time - whilst doing our day jobs.

After all that's what we pay specialists for - if we could afford them. I'm sure we'd sooner spend that money on the students education.

Edited June 7, 2019 by DrBeaker

[FN-GM]

Not every school is the same. Some have a teaching style that find iPads and asset some don't. Some schools provide IT the budget some don't. There is no point agruing about it on here.

[DrBeaker]

Not every school is the same. Some have a teaching style that find iPads and asset some don't. Some schools provide IT the budget some don't. There is no point agruing about it on here.

 

Exactly. Some schools may have had people who understood, supported and good management of the Apple Tech with SLT backing. Some might not have. It's simply not going to work for everyone and not everyone has the same level of funding or staff to manage a system like that.

 

We've used Apple Macs, iPads and Apple TVs. In the end due to teacher feedback they were removed from the classrooms and replaced with a standard solution of Windows PCs and projectors which worked more reliably (from the teachers viewpoint). We've had constant issues with integrating Apple devices into an AD-based network it just gives us a headache. Not all teachers are going to be interested in the new solutions either. Some simply want to teach and aren't interested in learning anything new.

Edited June 8, 2019 by DrBeaker

[crc-ict]

So the term "Pro" in "iPad Pro" you wouldn't equate to a 'professional' device then? A LOT of 3rd party management tools for iPads are essentially useless for us as they can only work around the limitations of the OS they are managing - which is an Apple limitation. I'm by no means an Apple or iPad expert, but whether it was iPhone/iPad configurator, Meraki, Lightspeed etc all had workarounds for things that should just work properly.

 

E.g. Active Directory, GPOs etc work very well with .... Windows OS's

 

For now... Let's not forget that Microsoft are pushing ever harder towards a more Apple-like model for Windows 10 and management. I wouldn't be surprised if the start with trying to phase out 'on prem' and moving into the Azure cloud evolves into the disappearance of the management features we all cling on to in the future.

 

Maybe we need to start coming to terms with the changes in the landscape and getting used to not being able to lock down and control every aspect of devices.

 

But certainly for schools, a whole myriad of things need to change before we will be able to accept that revolution - and many of those things are way outside of IT's control.

[jthompson]

you have a wireless screen in the classroom anyway.

 

What hardware do you use for the wireless display from iPads, and do you have any particular networking setup for it? From what I remember of testing with some Apple TV units years ago, having more than a few of those on the same subnet quickly got messy. The iOS UI for picking an AirPlay device didn't scale well for more than a few available devices (let alone 100 or so) and people from other classrooms could (mistakenly or otherwise) take over an AirPlay display a bit too easily. Wondering if things have moved on in the years since I last played with any of that.

[Brimstone]

What hardware do you use for the wireless display from iPads, and do you have any particular networking setup for it? From what I remember of testing with some Apple TV units years ago, having more than a few of those on the same subnet quickly got messy. The iOS UI for picking an AirPlay device didn't scale well for more than a few available devices (let alone 100 or so) and people from other classrooms could (mistakenly or otherwise) take over an AirPlay display a bit too easily. Wondering if things have moved on in the years since I last played with any of that.

All done using MDM profiles, you can restrict which Airplay devices are available to which iOS devices, you can also use a management password to connect from your device. AppleTV can be deployed using DEP so just turn them on and they are enroled into MDM with the correct profiles to manage with iOS and macOS.

 

If the schools have aging old desktop PC's that are no good then I tend to replace these with AppleTV, if the desktop is less old then use Airserver on it. I strongly discourage schools from buying IWB's better off with a cheaper, easier to use and more reliable flat screen TV.

[RLR]

All done using MDM profiles, you can restrict which Airplay devices are available to which iOS devices, you can also use a management password to connect from your device. AppleTV can be deployed using DEP so just turn them on and they are enroled into MDM with the correct profiles to manage with iOS and macOS.

 

If the schools have aging old desktop PC's that are no good then I tend to replace these with AppleTV, if the desktop is less old then use Airserver on it. I strongly discourage schools from buying IWB's better off with a cheaper, easier to use and more reliable flat screen TV.

 

We've been buying TV's for the past few years now. Think we've replaced all our IWB now except the ones in science block as they "need" them for their work.

[Arthur]

Note. The first video contains some flashing images.

 

 

Edited June 13, 2019 by Arthur

[Arthur]

The iPadOS 13 public beta is now available.

 

https://beta.apple.com/sp/betaprogram