Hi guys,
We are planning to get some Sync Cart for iPads in the classet.
Have anyone got any experiences with these devices? Any feedback are welcome. We have lot of questions about how the Cart work?Such as how many iTunes account is needed per cart? How well it perform with a Windows Laptop?Does it back up all iPads into one backup copy or each iPad will have individual backup? Etc...
Thank you very much!
Answer
Bretford PowerSync for iPad
+8Best answer by ThomRCSD
First things first... there's no magic here. Vendors love to throw around "sync cart" like they've developed some new form of magic.
It's a USB hub. Depending on your view, a very nice USB hub that also charges your devices and allows you to secure them; but in all practice, it's a 30 port hub.
Don't expect a universal "sync" button that automates things. It doesn't change the workflow of iTunes anymore than a cheap 7 port hub does. It doesn't remove the limitations of iTunes restoring only one device at a time, increase the sane device limit on your host's USB port or the location of iTunes related files.
For deployment, it's actually a bit of a pain to use (sliding iPads in, plugging all the cables in only to realize that you have 24 iPads registering out of 30 due to cables not plugged in fully). Expect to unplug/re-plug the USB cable from your station quite often to look for black screens.
What it does do (from a deployment/management standpoint) is allow you to queue up a slew of systems in Xcode for iOS upgrade. It allows you to charge thirty devices at a time. And it's a fairly decent security piece for field storage/use.
I've got about thirty of these in the field (forty or so if you count the older Bretford iPod Touch carts) covering various revisions. They're getting better, but they're still not a friend when it comes to bulk deployment.
+6First things first... there's no magic here. Vendors love to throw around "sync cart" like they've developed some new form of magic.
It's a USB hub. Depending on your view, a very nice USB hub that also charges your devices and allows you to secure them; but in all practice, it's a 30 port hub.
Don't expect a universal "sync" button that automates things. It doesn't change the workflow of iTunes anymore than a cheap 7 port hub does. It doesn't remove the limitations of iTunes restoring only one device at a time, increase the sane device limit on your host's USB port or the location of iTunes related files.
For deployment, it's actually a bit of a pain to use (sliding iPads in, plugging all the cables in only to realize that you have 24 iPads registering out of 30 due to cables not plugged in fully). Expect to unplug/re-plug the USB cable from your station quite often to look for black screens.
What it does do (from a deployment/management standpoint) is allow you to queue up a slew of systems in Xcode for iOS upgrade. It allows you to charge thirty devices at a time. And it's a fairly decent security piece for field storage/use.
I've got about thirty of these in the field (forty or so if you count the older Bretford iPod Touch carts) covering various revisions. They're getting better, but they're still not a friend when it comes to bulk deployment.
+17We're thinking about the bretford trays (only hold 10 devices, but similar idea).
I think they will be most useful not at initial deployment as much as when we need to add apps to all devices. Well, theoretically, anyway. I'm not a fan of the JSS app model in shared environments, instead we sync to an iTunes library.
We also were testing wireless sync, but the problem we had with that is the laptops try to sync to laptop x - not itunes library x. So if someone else happens to login to the sync station, it would try to sync with their library. Clunky.
+12We've got two iPad carts and my opinion is pretty much the same as Thom's, however I would really emphasize that the dock connectors in the cart are a bit on the cheap side. Connecting the iPads can be frustrating. On the whole I would recommend the cart primarily for the security and convenience of a "30 port hub" for charging and syncing... but beware of the dock connectors!
+8Thanks guys for your responses. That's really helpful. And I also got a few other questions.
@thom Looks like there is no difference than sync 30 iPad to your laptop 30 times one after another. It just saved the effort of swapping them. So will one iTune account per cart be enough? When you back up 30 iPads, will it created 30 individual copies? When you sync, all 30 iPads all receive the same content from same iTunes libraries. So if each iPad had different contents created by student, they will either be all wiped or replicated to all iPads?
Is there a need to take the iPad cover off to load them on Sync Cart or Tray?
Thanks.
+6Sorry for the delay in responding, I've attempted to write a clear response to your questions and keep winding up with pages of text.
Perhaps we could take to an email discussion or potentially a phone call?
Over the past four or five months, our Apple reps have been sending other schools and districts to us for discussions related to deployment and management. Usually they wind up as onsite visits; but we've done a number of phone conferences as well -- if you're interested, I'd be happy to set up a phone conference with myself and a member of our Instructional Technology department. We'd be able to cover a number of topics that way.
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