Shared iPad allows multiple users to sign into a Supervised iPad with their individual Managed Apple ID (MAID) while retaining their personalized experience.
Shared iPads can be used by educational institutions and businesses and are compatible with Apple School Manager and Apple Business Manager. For a general overview of Shared iPad capabilities, see this Shared iPad overview from Apple.
To enable Shared iPads with Addigy, the device must use Automated Device Enrollment with the Shared iPad option enabled in the policy settings. To learn more about enrolling these devices, see Automated Device Enrollment Settings.
Shared iPad Prerequisites
- Devices must be supervised (via ADE or Configurator)
- Must have 32 GB of storage
- Supported Devices
- All iPad Pro models
- iPad (5th generation or later)
- iPad Air 2 or later
- iPad mini (4th generation or later)
User Considerations
Admins can restrict the maximum number of users on an iPad or the maximum amount of storage available to each user by configuring the settings in the Policy's Automated Device Enrollment section.
Shared iPads can also be configured to only allow guest users to log in. Guest sessions do not save any data to iCloud or the device, and all activity is erased when the user logs out.
If admins are unsure of their device needs, we highly recommend leaving the User Settings to "None" and use the defaults of the iPadOS device.
MDM Commands
There are two unique MDM commands for Shared iPads:
- Delete Users... This action sends a logout command to the device. As soon as the device accepts the command, the result will appear in the Events dashboard. If no user is logged in, the device will display this message: There are no users currently logged in. The dialogue box will show all the users on the device.
- Logout Users... This action sends the command to delete user accounts from this device. This CANNOT be undone. A list of users on the device will be displayed with a Delete Account dialogue next to their name. Once the button is pressed, the admin will be asked to confirm that they want to delete the account. When the device accepts the command, the result will appear in the Events dashboard.
The iPad reports a list of users to Addigy every hour or on every Policy Deployment. Both these MDM commands are on the device's GoLive page.
Shared iPad Device Fact
Addigy has a Device Fact to display whether the device is a Shared iPad, and it can be found on the Device's GoLive page. This Device Fact is a boolean value that only displays True or False.
Admins can use this Device Fact to filter for devices on the Devices page.
Apple Classroom and Shared iPads
Shared iPads enabled by Addigy on iPadOS 14.5 and up will support Apple Classroom for classes synced with Apple School Manager. To learn more about how this works, see Classroom requirements for classes synced with Apple School Manager.
Upgrading Shared iPads to iPadOS 17
If there are existing user accounts on the iPad, admins cannot upgrade a Shared iPad to iPadOS 17. All users must be deleted from the device, or the device must be wiped before the update. This can be accomplished by sending the Delete User command from the device's GoLive page, and confirmed in the events page. To learn more, see Upgrade a Shared iPad to iPadOS 17.
To learn more about managing your device OS with Addigy, see System Updates via MDM and DDM.
Useful Shared iPad Resources from Apple
- Preparing a Shared iPad
- Shared iPad security in iPadOS
- Classroom User Guide
- Managed Apple IDs for Apple Devices