• Schools Complain About the iOS 7 Upgrade Stripping Profiles from Students' iPads

    by
    Akshay Masand
    Published on 2013-10-04 03:43 AM
    22 Comments Comments


    The folks over at AllThingsD are reporting that a number of schools that have incorporated Apple’s iPad into their curriculum are reporting that upgrading to iOS 7 stripped the tablets of the supervision profiles and filters that were put into place. This left many students unsupervised and unprotected from what the web has to offer.

    The publication cites the following memo sent to parents in the Manitou Springs School District 14 in Colorado:

    Apple did not realize that installing iOS 7 would remove our (and thousands of organizations across the country) safety protection measure, which now makes the iPad devices unfiltered when accessing the Internet away from school. In the short term, the district will be collecting iPad devices at the end of each day until the safety protection measure is reinstalled.
    Manitou’s District 14 had to collect “hundreds” of iPads, wipe and restore them, and reinstall a fresh version of iOS 7 along with any apps and content saved by the student. To avoid the hassle, other schools seem to have resorted to blocking over-the-air iOS 7 downloads altogether by adjusting campus Wi-Fi settings. One of the issues appears to lie within Apple’s Configurator tool, which was updated to version 1.4 alongside the launch of iOS 7. Several threads on Apple’s Support Communities webpage point to multiple failures and bugs like the disappearance of volume app codes when the tool is used with iPads running iOS 7. One of the forum members had the following to say regarding the matter:

    IT staff can't lockout iOS updates, but can lockout App updates. This renders Configurator 1.3 and 1.21 dead. Configurator v1.21 and 1.3 do not support iOS7, and most schools have had iOS7 installed because it arrives at the whim of any one student or ipad [sic] user.
    Apple seems to be aware of the issue and is in the process of working on a fix, though it is unclear how long this will take exactly. Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller had the following to say regarding the matter:

    Some business and education users have reported that their supervised devices have reverted to un-supervised when they upgrade to iOS 7. We are aware of this issue and will have a fix this month.
    All of these issues with iOS 7 come at a bad time for Apple, which is pushing hard for schools to get behind its iPad in Education initiative. We’ll have to see what Apple does to remedy the situation and how schools respond.

    Source: AllThingsD
    This article was originally published in forum thread: Schools Complain About the iOS 7 Upgrade Stripping Profiles from Students' iPads started by Akshay Masand View original post
    1. Categories:
    2. iOS,
    3. Apple,
    4. iPad
    Comments 22 Comments
    1. PokemonDesigner's Avatar
      PokemonDesigner - 2013-10-04, 03:49 AM
      Lol. This is a pathetic attempt to blame apple for the schools stupid decision.
    1. Scotty Manley Silberhorn's Avatar
      Scotty Manley Silberhorn - 2013-10-04, 03:54 AM
      This problem is massive. I spent hundreds of hours supervising devices and kids go update to ios 7 and undo that work in a matter or minutes.
    1. steve-z17's Avatar
      steve-z17 - 2013-10-04, 04:11 AM
      I understand iOS 7 has bugs, that's bound to happen with a new OS release, but I really really doubt this is going to change anything when it comes to schools picking a tablet...they can get them for a great price and they're the easiest to learn/use. I just hope Apple fixes the bugs soon, we've had quite a few faculty members report problems to us the last few days.
    1. dsg's Avatar
      dsg - 2013-10-04, 04:11 AM
      schools and companies that purchased iPads for use by pupils/employes(these users don't own the iDevices they use and really have no right to update them), have the right to complain about Apples over site of not being able to lockout the iOS OTA update feature, which circumvents any software or requirement needed on the iDevice
    1. OHMichael's Avatar
      OHMichael - 2013-10-04, 04:12 AM
      That's why students need to realize they need to stick to iPhone or smart-phones. You never saw me take a laptop to school with me ha because i knew it would be hard to hide and easy to see. If you take an Ipad to school then you deserve to get it taken up either-way regardless of the monitoring. They couldn't find it and even if they did it would be easy to keep from getting taken up because by law a teacher couldn't force themselves on you and if they did you could go to the police. Most of us would agree if we could be a teenager again most of us would tell the schools to go get you know ha because its against our rights but then again its school so leave the fun at home till its over with,
    1. Carvensno's Avatar
      Carvensno - 2013-10-04, 04:40 AM
      Schools need to stay with books and stop trying to do this ebooks and giving snot nosed, spoiled little shyt kids a 600.00 iPad so they can destroy it or whatever. Pray to god these schools either had the students or parents sign a contract saying their liable for those iPads!
    1. docmagoo2's Avatar
      docmagoo2 - 2013-10-04, 04:45 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by OHMichael View Post
      That's why students need to realize they need to stick to iPhone or smart-phones. You never saw me take a laptop to school with me ha because i knew it would be hard to hide and easy to see. If you take an Ipad to school then you deserve to get it taken up either-way regardless of the monitoring. They couldn't find it and even if they did it would be easy to keep from getting taken up because by law a teacher couldn't force themselves on you and if they did you could go to the police. Most of us would agree if we could be a teenager again most of us would tell the schools to go get you know ha because its against our rights but then again its school so leave the fun at home till its over with,
      The iPads were school issue so your point about bringing hardware to school is moot. As a result the school is free to do with them as they please including restricting their content and access. Also you mention bring a smartphone, schools can confiscate stuff.... At least they can in the UK...
    1. Nefarious's Avatar
      Nefarious - 2013-10-04, 09:01 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by OHMichael View Post
      That's why students need to realize they need to stick to iPhone or smart-phones. You never saw me take a laptop to school with me ha because i knew it would be hard to hide and easy to see. If you take an Ipad to school then you deserve to get it taken up either-way regardless of the monitoring. They couldn't find it and even if they did it would be easy to keep from getting taken up because by law a teacher couldn't force themselves on you and if they did you could go to the police. Most of us would agree if we could be a teenager again most of us would tell the schools to go get you know ha because its against our rights but then again its school so leave the fun at home till its over with,
      I don't think you are understanding. They are talking about school issued iPads. Many schools are now issuing iPads to students as part in replacement of textbooks or used to complete assignments. The school is not able to control the activities the iPads can be used for with the current iOS 7 update.
    1. holyshnikes's Avatar
      holyshnikes - 2013-10-04, 11:31 AM
      So it's apples fault that the kids help themselves from updating? Once the staff found out that there was a problem with iOS 7 they should have told the students not to update until there was a fix. If the kid did update....sorry, but you just lost your iPad privileges. Looks like you have to use a computer.
    1. bigboyz's Avatar
      bigboyz - 2013-10-04, 01:37 PM
      The entire program of kids/iPads has been a total EPIC FAILURE. All i hear are reports of vandalism, theft and oh updates that remove data now. Invest in an IT dept that knows what they are doing. Second, don't let the kids bring the iPads home. Third, backup the devices before updating. Some of these issues are easily fixed. Yet something tells me they will never follow through.
    1. Scotty Manley Silberhorn's Avatar
      Scotty Manley Silberhorn - 2013-10-04, 02:04 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by bigboyz View Post
      The entire program of kids/iPads has been a total EPIC FAILURE. All i hear are reports of vandalism, theft and oh updates that remove data now. Invest in an IT dept that knows what they are doing. Second, don't let the kids bring the iPads home. Third, backup the devices before updating. Some of these issues are easily fixed. Yet something tells me they will never follow through.
      One does not backup iPads in a schools setting. You obviously don't realize what you're talking about. There are way more beneficial things that come from the ipad than you think. I am part of the IT department. I know very well what I'm doing and I work directly with apple of these sorts of things. Unfortunately, the tools that apple has provided us for success are broken right now. No problems are easily fixed when you have to manage 2,500 iPads at one time.

      Quote Originally Posted by holyshnikes View Post
      So it's apples fault that the kids help themselves from updating? Once the staff found out that there was a problem with iOS 7 they should have told the students not to update until there was a fix. If the kid did update....sorry, but you just lost your iPad privileges. Looks like you have to use a computer.
      Apple just needs to allow mdm to turn off ota updates. That would've fixed the problem. We weren't planing on updated our schools iPads until November, when all of the bugs were worked out. Now we are forced to update all of them because so many kids did update. And in our school. The iPad is essential to the classroom for project based learning and flipped classrooms.
    1. jose060789's Avatar
      jose060789 - 2013-10-04, 03:07 PM
      How about we just use textbooks like the old fashion way? How things used to be before they started even using iPads? That's how things were back in my high school days. SMH
    1. dsg's Avatar
      dsg - 2013-10-04, 04:02 PM
      Because its a backwards way of thinking, Apple just need to work with the schools more to get it fine tuned
    1. Scotty Manley Silberhorn's Avatar
      Scotty Manley Silberhorn - 2013-10-04, 05:26 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by jose060789 View Post
      How about we just use textbooks like the old fashion way? How things used to be before they started even using iPads? That's how things were back in my high school days. SMH
      Unfortunately, your high schools days are behind us and education has progressed.
    1. jose060789's Avatar
      jose060789 - 2013-10-04, 06:19 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by Scotty Manley Silberhorn View Post
      Unfortunately, your high schools days are behind us and education has progressed.
      The world now just seems to be over-runned by technology. Don't get me wrong I love technology but sometimes I just prefer the old fashioned, it's bug free and won't break on you.
    1. dsg's Avatar
      dsg - 2013-10-04, 06:24 PM
      it's not bug free, I remember text books having pages missing, getting ink everywhere because of a broken pen among other issues
    1. jose060789's Avatar
      jose060789 - 2013-10-04, 11:57 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by dsg View Post
      it's not bug free, I remember text books having pages missing, getting ink everywhere because of a broken pen among other issues
      I don't know about that but my school didn't have any issues when it came to textbooks, maybe some wear and folded pages but that's about it.
    1. dsg's Avatar
      dsg - 2013-10-05, 12:05 AM
      lol, you went to a school that cared then
    1. jose060789's Avatar
      jose060789 - 2013-10-05, 12:47 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by dsg View Post
      lol, you went to a school that cared then
      I don't know man they probably just had the extra money or kids in the past didn't mess up the books as other kids.
    1. Scotty Manley Silberhorn's Avatar
      Scotty Manley Silberhorn - 2013-10-05, 03:01 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by jose060789 View Post
      I don't know man they probably just had the extra money or kids in the past didn't mess up the books as other kids.
      There is a bug with textbooks now though. It's old school. Outdated. It's not how kids want to learn. You can't collaborate as easily with just textbooks. Communication is so much better with electronic devices between teachers and students. Kids want to learn on decives. Yes there are some kids out there who put up a fight. But there always will be those kids.

      With iPads, you can look up updated information in a couple of minutes. Textbooks always stay the same...
    Page 1 of 2 12

  • Connect With Us

  • Discord

    Join our Discord

  • Twitter Box

  • Facebook