[android] How do you guys deal with store purchases???

[CyBeRkId2002]

Hi all,

 

We are currently in the process of purchasing a number of these for specific purposes around the school and I wondered how people deal with the app store and purchasing apps?

 

Main questions I have are:

 

• Do you have a single account for a group of tablets, and if so is buying an app once for them ok???
  
• How do you deal with cards? Do staff enter their own (guessing not) and if not how do the school feel about having card linked to account? Is it add card > purchase app > remove card cycle?
  
• Are their any nice ways to manage app installs onto multiple devices. I have looked at the management tools linked with google apps for education and whilst lock down, encryption etc. is great, actually deploying apps seems like a manual task. Would be great if their was a place site licences (or even multiple individual licences) etc could be purchased and apk's manually installed onto devices.
  

 

Any advice from people who have these for staff (or indeed student) use would be very much appeciated.

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Blue_Cookeh]

You might be better off sticking with Google Play gift cards, which you should be able to find a supplier for somewhere so staff aren't spending their own money...

 

Can't answer the others, we ended up going with iPads because there seems to be more "enterprise" support for them from Apple.

[stevenlong1985]

Just a quick note, depends what your schools firewall is like. you might not be able to download the apps, as the port would be blocked from the council. I know Birmingham has that an issue. youtube app wont play any video, google play / market you can see but cant download. I think you can centrally manage using Google Authenticator but I need more research on that. I know from using google if you signin your android device to your account you can control what apps the device can have installed

[Arthur]

I think you can centrally manage using Google Authenticator but I need more research on that.

Google Authenticator only does two-step verification. Are you thinking of something else?

[CyBeRkId2002]

@Blue_Cookeh: When you say they are more entreprise-y what exactly do you mean? This is another consideration (and one LT are keen in) but at present the cost divide is huge. Do you use 'Apple Configurator' (we don't have a mac in the school so that would be another additional cost)? If so do you use VPP and does it work well? Are you able to buy in bulk AND automatically push the apps out to devices? Might be something we need to consider, although looking at the apps for education portal I can't see it being that long until google catch up and do something similar (fingers crossed!) Also the Google Play Gift Cards are a great idea, just not available yet... release is imminent or so I believe

@stevenlong1985: Yeah, we were currently with embc and had some difficulties, now with RM and no issue at all. Presume someone asked about it in the past and they unblocked for all?

[stevenlong1985]

sorry I was half a sleep last night replying and still half a sleep now.

 

have a look at these 2 pages. I haven't really progressed with mobile devices in school. just haven't had a time too. BGFL havent had much luck yet, but I would say look into transparent proxy. I havent done this yet, I have no clue where to start.

 

heres some info regarding managing android devices

 

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Putting Android to work for your business

 

 

Google Apps Mobile Management: Overview - Google Apps Help

 

Have a nice day

[Blue_Cookeh]

@Blue_Cookeh: When you say they are more entreprise-y what exactly do you mean? This is another consideration (and one LT are keen in) but at present the cost divide is huge. Do you use 'Apple Configurator' (we don't have a mac in the school so that would be another additional cost)? If so do you use VPP and does it work well? Are you able to buy in bulk AND automatically push the apps out to devices? Might be something we need to consider, although looking at the apps for education portal I can't see it being that long until google catch up and do something similar (fingers crossed!) Also the Google Play Gift Cards are a great idea, just not available yet... release is imminent or so I believe

 

As far as the Apple kit goes, you don't necessarily need a Mac (although Apple Configurator does work very well)... I set ours up by hand initially, which just meant adding them to our Meraki MDM account (they have Android support coming soon, to be fair). Using the Meraki MDM you can put codes in you get from Apple VPP and it'll push the app out to the iPads automatically when you hit save.

 

I'm a keen Android user at home, but realistically, the quality of Apps for education aren't as good on Android (yet!!) and overall "enterprise" management seems a bit lacking for deployments like ours... that isn't to say iOS doesn't have it's problems in our environment, like not being able to totally lock out the Settings app, but it's better than Google's offering at the moment.

 

I don't know if it applies to you, but be wary of proxy servers with these devices, Android has a very quirky proxy implementation that doesn't work very well (on my SGS2 at least), whereas I haven't had any issues with our Forefront TMG proxy and our iPads.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Blue_Cookeh

[mavhc]

If you're planning on having more than 5 or so devices

 

For android: Sign up for google apps for education, install Device Policy app on device

For ios: Buy a mac mini server, sign up for apple's education thing

For kindle: Use the new parental controls to stop users accessing store from the device, buy amazon gift cards, send amazon books via web interface (have to click for every device though), or email non drm stuff via [email protected]

 

For all 3: Set up a transparent proxy, I have a Devices wifi ssid that's gateway is the Green interface on an IPCop VM, set up with transparent proxy

 

We should make a wiki page for all this

[CyBeRkId2002]

Cheers @Blue_Cookeh! That Meraki MDM looks great! Definately food for though although the 2x price gap is hard to swallow at present!

[mavhc]

Just found out: Amazon kindle app for android, can't stop purchases. Also you can't register kindles online anymore, have to use device, which sucks for keyboard less ones. 1 year on still waiting for Wispercast and gifting ebooks in uk.