TopKeeper

Are your users setup in Apple School manager at all? The users may have a security permission in there to create a specific sized passcode. The passcode is also saved to there icloud account through ASM so if they created the passcode on another iPad a year ago say it could be this. You can also reset them in ASM.

Happy to hep you with this, Your first point about US apps, as far as i'm aware you can't get apps from other countries. Regarding setup, for intune you will need to set up 2 tokens in the first instance, one for your apps and the other for you iPad/Apple product deployment. You will also need to create an MDM in ASM for device deployment. Create an enrollment profile for the iPads, once the iPads are enrolled with their new names your ready to push apps to them. To push apps out its a case of creating a security group in azure/entra, I find it a lot easier to set it up as a dynamic group and set a rule so "If enrollment profile is equal to ****" You then find the apps in Intune and add this group to them. If you need me to go into further depth let me know.

Few things i've come across that can cause this issue. what version of iOS are you running on the iPad, I believe there is a limit of around iOS 15.5 if it is lower than this it won't deploy the apps. Force sync may also help. Also instead of shared iPad mode, I would recommend "guest mode". Shared mode will split the remaining storage space between both you cached users where as guest will have the full thing. Guest mode will also reset the profile after logging out. All apps logged out etc. Makes it great for students and shared teachers. Try the force sync on a different wifi with different network (Firewall)

Usually stuck on waiting after an iOS update, we've had it a lot with the new iOS 18 update. After leaving it about half an hour it started updating them all. You can also push a bulk sync out to all the iPads in intune.