Shared iPad Overview
support.apple.com
support.apple.com
> Shared iPad requires a mobile device management (MDM) solution and Managed Apple IDs that are issued and owned by the organization.
To note, I don't think I've ever seen an organization actually sharing their iPads at scale. For instance I saw a Sales fleet with central management but each employee has their own iPad that's exchange only if it dies or disfunctions.
Same for classrooms, each kid getting their own iPad seems to be the norm. I'd guess at the end of the day having multiple account on one device is still a PITA in some way ? (local storage management perhaps ?)
For example, it makes sense for sales to have their own iPad, because they use it as a portable notebook, CRM, email box, slideshow controller, etc.
But in geomatics or environmental engineering, it’s not uncommon for field techs to share the ruggedized iPad that’s already preloaded with the 5-figure mapping software, data collection tools, etc
I'd imagine a single common user that's never touched, with a pin/password memorized by everyone.
This is how it was done in a typical 24/7 operation that was as small as it could be.
The office people, who worked straight days, each had a PC at their desk, but those offices were dark at night. One supervisor office was manned 0600 to midnight and there were 3 different user accounts on that one.
In the labs there were two "community" desks that the regular shift workers all shared, one in the main paperwork area with the printers and telephones, and one backup/overflow desk in the chemical area. One unique username on each PC, but both using the same password and sharing the same email and LOB servers. That same common email was also used by the supervisors and functioned as a single "interface to the laboratory" for the rest of the organization and the outside world. Naturally this is in a physically secure area but nobody ever signs out or logs in unless the PC is rebooted, and whoever is on duty at the time uses the same password. Each employee also had their own private company email address and could use their own device on the guest wifi.
IIRC the idea of a personal computer was so that it's affordable for every operator with a use case to have one of their own.
It's been a while and as commodities they have stratified into fairly well-defined price points.
If you're using iPads now and can not truly afford one for each user, that could be a strong sign that you need a platform having a lower-cost pricing structure engineered in from the beginning.
In other words, this doesn't help out families who might want to share a single device. Lame.
Perhaps Samsung's tablet could be more polish, but for many use cases Chrome OS is more flexible and will "just work". And to the subject at hand, user switching is pretty decent, all the more so if you keep nothing local.
Edited to add a link (no affiliation with Jamf, just a user): https://www.jamf.com/products/jamf-now/
What I would love to see is a robust FOSS MDM option. There seem to be a few out there, but I’m not sure how well they’re maintained.
Multi-user is just one thing, but especially galling for people on lower budgets or who want a tablet for family use.
But Apple is not alone. My Nexus 7 Android tablets (the first tablets I bought for my kids, second-hand off of eBay) supported multi-user quite well. I haven’t seen any modern Android tablets that do that (and I looked around at Android 11/12/13 tablets recently).
For a mature OS (if you subscribe to the idea that iPadOS is an OS in the first place), features like multiple profiles seem like table stakes.
I'm not sure whether I prefer a go to market approach more similar to Google (launch quick, and kill projects that don't work) or Apple's approach (launch extremely slow and be extra sure there's long-term product market fit).
Does this mean I could have got them a free Apple Business Manager account and given them two accounts? I assume it's not that simple, despite ABM being free?