[mac software] Apple iPads and managing the Appstore

[zag]

We have loads of Apple iPads now and maintaining the different iTunes accounts is becoming a hassle.

 

Is there any way to manage iTunes and purchases centrally?

[zag]

No one got any ideas?

[stevenwba]

No one got any ideas?

We have just had a few ipads here, so will be looking at this soon, what ive read so far, it looks like it could be a real pain to manage these, wished apple would spend more time looking at the needs of education users.

 

May i just ask, have you had one itunes account per ipad, then buy the apps you want on each ipad? The only way i think it may work, would have itunes on one machine, and one ipad exactly how you want it, then sync all the apps to itunes, connect another empty ipad and then re sync.

 

Only problem is, i believe any setting changes made would have to be done on each ipad, although if you have a mac server, i think you can manage ipad profiles there, but i havent even got round to taking a look at that yet.

 

Just thought id let you know your not alone

[FN-GM]

I think but I am not 100% but I think mac server 10.7 can support the management of ipads

[zag]

Yeh I've been letting people register the ipads on their own itunes accounts.

 

I'm facing the inevitable questions of why people have to pay for their own apps.

 

I think we will just have to setup some kind of expenses system. The iPads work better as standalone units.

[laptopsandspares]

there's a company in Cambridge that make a circuit board used in the two multi-charge and sync ipod docks. from reading the spec on those products (I'm sorry this is vague, it was a few weeks ago i looked at this), and i think one is made by parrat, my understanding is you have one pc, one itunes account and all the ipads sync to the same account. When they are connected they all show up in itunes under devices on the side.

 

I'm not sure what flexibility these will afford you in terms of synching apps, whether all the ipads will have to have all the apps, or whether you can select each device and check the apps individually but I think it offers the solution you are after.

 

Let me do some googling...

 

Just found this on the apple site:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2479050?start=0&tstart=0

this suggests what I thought that if each pad is given it's own device name you can select apps to sync specifically. Think it will mean though that each iPad would need to be switched to a single itunes account though meaning apps needing to be re-purchased.

 

These guys are in the states

We are please to introduce the first security cart to sync and charge Apple iPads, iPad2, iPods & even MacBooks. gives you an idea of what's possible

 

and that product uses a Cambrionix board Large scale USB charge and sync, iPad Charging and Sync Station, iPod Charging and Sync Station, Cambrionix Cambridge UK (look on the site for the C3-Case), maybe you could build something yourself? These are the guys in Cambridge.

 

Hope this helps

 

D

[GrumbleDook]

I am going to an Apple event on 19th and this is high on my questions. I'll start a fresh thread asking for other questions too.

[stevenwba]

there's a company in Cambridge that make a circuit board used in the two multi-charge and sync ipod docks. from reading the spec on those products (I'm sorry this is vague, it was a few weeks ago i looked at this), and i think one is made by parrat, my understanding is you have one pc, one itunes account and all the ipads sync to the same account. When they are connected they all show up in itunes under devices on the side.

 

I'm not sure what flexibility these will afford you in terms of synching apps, whether all the ipads will have to have all the apps, or whether you can select each device and check the apps individually but I think it offers the solution you are after.

 

Let me do some googling...

 

Just found this on the apple site:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2479050?start=0&tstart=0

this suggests what I thought that if each pad is given it's own device name you can select apps to sync specifically. Think it will mean though that each iPad would need to be switched to a single itunes account though meaning apps needing to be re-purchased.

 

These guys are in the states

We are please to introduce the first security cart to sync and charge Apple iPads, iPad2, iPods & even MacBooks. gives you an idea of what's possible

 

and that product uses a Cambrionix board Large scale USB charge and sync, iPad Charging and Sync Station, iPod Charging and Sync Station, Cambrionix Cambridge UK (look on the site for the C3-Case), maybe you could build something yourself? These are the guys in Cambridge.

 

Hope this helps

 

D

 

That ipad trolly looks really interesting, my only question left is if, as suggest above there is one itunes account, will itunes itself allow the apps to be pushed onto many ipads.

 

If so i can imagine us having a system, where our mac server, is the main apple account, with itunes with all the apps we need, then all exsisting ipads simply get connected and sync'd.

 

I get the feeling there may be some problems with this, either due to licensing or limits with how many devices can access and sync to one itunes/apple id

[laptopsandspares]

The cart do look interesting, I was investigating because I'd read on here that schools were having similar issues to yours and I was hoping to offer them to you all via the forum. I've been tempted to buy a board and see if we can build something too but the project never grew any legs. I know the firm in the states that produce the multi-bay battery chargers that Datamation the iPod cart guys stock and sell. I'm hoping the are building the iPod docks too so I can look at importing them. then all i have to do is manage to get hold of Sean or Chris to finailse our sponsorship...

 

Reading the thread on the apple forum, there's "no such thing as a family licence" which i guess applies to this situation however...

 

My step son and I had two user accounts on the same laptop. We would "borrow" each others apps by adding them to the library from their locations on the hdd on each others windows accounts. i think itunes might have copied the apps to each account as I have "let itunes manage your folders" checked. We were both then able to add and sync each others apps. At update time it would ask for the password from the account that had purchased it. Occasionally i would get a message saying that my account had been accessed from another device and have to re-confirm or reset my password but not often enough to be sure the two things were connected.

 

I'd think if you had all these machines syncing to the same account via a single machine, this is less likely to be an issue. I can't comment on the licenseing issue but I'd think it was certainly possible sync an app to more than one iPad, but selectivley rather than as a blanket rollout.

 

Things to consider perhaps though are the implications of iOS5. The two features I'm thinking of specifically are the ability to own manage and maintain an apple iOS device without the need for a PC/Mac, or "over the air" I think the phrase is. This might negate the need for you sync any of the machines by cable, just transfer them to the one school apple account. The other is the talk of apps being available on any device you own. see Apple - iCloud - All your music on all your devices.

 

This as I read it means if you want a new app you could buy it on one device and any other iPad on the account could download and use it. It wouldn't even need to be returned to a central point for syncing

 

It might be these new features answer your problems, providing all the iPads are booked to the same single apple account. The licence thing probably needs looking at but if they don't have something like this set up for schools already, for iCloud to work there must be something in the pipeline for multiple users.

 

D

[stevenwba]

Cheers David, you've managed to atleast shed some light on the entire process, but as you say, the amount now in schools must surely mean apple can no longer ignore this, especially when you think of the kinds of sales apple are making direct to education customers.

[laptopsandspares]

It's always very difficult to predict how apple will react to anything. You would think, with a market the size of the educational one in the UK, the states and worldwide they would be bending over backwards to accomodate but apple have always been quite aloof. If you buy, you buy on their terms! I guess they can get away with it all the while people keep buying, and in the defence of the products, although expensive do seem to do what they say on the tin. Interesting business model though, I hear Microsoft are adopting a similar rigid and authoritarian approach to their app developer programme, now they've seen apple get away with it. i'm not sure if this is good or bad for the developer or consumer, or if it will even work with a shaky platform like microsofts mobile OS. I wonder if the european commision will ever tell Cupertino they have to offer a choice of browser to eurozone customers when they first register their products? Or if cupertino would listen?

 

I looked at educational discounts when I bought my MacBook Pro but it's a paltry discount. I assume it's to help protect their market and market price. I'd bet if students could buy Mac equipment 50% off the "grey" market would suddenly be flooded with cheaper products.

 

I think iOS5 might address the specific issues you have, it may be worth though having a look on the apple suppourt forums or the 1,000,001 ipad forums on the interent. the beauty of computing is that if you have an issue, someone else probably already had it.

 

Good luck.

[morganw]

I've used a 20 unit iPod Touch dock that should sync and charge all of the units at once. In actual use it just demonstrated that iTunes and the Apple Mobile Device service are not designed to have more than a few devices connected at once. processor utilisation for the service would increase with every additional unit connected, in my case everything started to grind to a halt after about 15 iPods being connected, 18 iPods would lock up the entire system with the Apple Mobile Device service completely maxing out one processor core.

 

I wouldn't recommend a dock for anything but charging.

Hopefully iOS5 will allow people to self-manage over wireless to the degree they need.

[beast_gts]

I'm facing the inevitable questions of why people have to pay for their own apps.

 

I think we will just have to setup some kind of expenses system.

 

We just give them iTunes gift cards.

[zag]

Yep the gift cards are a great idea!

 

We've just given one out to a student for the first time as well. I turned on parental restrictions but lets see how long it takes for them to guess the wireless key!

[Hacker72]

Morning,

 

I have just deployed 16 iPad 2s into a junior school in Birmingham. They are in a case with a "Notesync" unit that can charge and sync 16 iPads at once.

 

To configure them I used my Macbook Pro, created an iTunes account for the school and a differnect user account on my Macbook.

 

I simply then logged into iTunes and downloaded all of the apps that the school wanted onto the Macbook. When I connected the 16 iPads I simply named and did the start up configuration. Then they all sync'd the apps that I had downloaded onto all 16 of them.

 

Seems to work great, only have to purchase one copy of the app for the school. (Still unsure on licencing issues???)

 

The kids love them, I have had to manually lock each ipads restrictions down and join them to the wireless network.

 

Hope this helps..

 

Matt

[vote-for-pedro]

best method I have found is open an itunes account with a voucher card use an email such as [email protected]

buy an app or 2 then log in to each ipad and go to app store purchased apps page and download the app on each ipad

teachers can put there own apps on if they like using there own accounts.

 

 

Yes, you can download the app onto as many devices as you want. The app store on the ipad lets you sign in and out with what ever account you want and then download apps that were purchased with that account for free.

 

You can also use that same itunes library on a computer to sync everything over to as many devices as you want.

 

now on the ipods/iphones/ipads the limitation that exists is the number of itunes accounts.

 

Lets say your family has 4 itunes accounts. One for each parent and two children also have their own accounts. You would be able to download apps for free that have been purchesed on any of these accounts. However each device can only have apps and music from a limit of 5 accounts. So if your family has 5 accounts your still good and can load everything for free. If for some reason there are more than 5 account you will have to pick the 5 that you want to be able to use and stuff from the 6th(and up) account cant be used.

 

 

 

This is really great for those expensive apps like GPS turn my turn direction apps. Navigon North America is $79, I purchased it all the time to route around traffic. I'm also able to download it onto my family members devices for free just by signing into my itunes account and downloading it from the app store on the device.