We provide a pretty white glove service to our customers in that we run setup on every new IOS device, manually set some settings that our not manageable through an MDM, and decluttering the home screen of widgets and many native IOS apps.
To be clear, I don’t want to remove or lock down the use of many native apps. I would like to remove all widgets, and remove the home screen SHORTCUTS to many native apps but leave the actual app itself available from the app library if needed.
The goal is to deliver a device with a clean decluttered INITIAL layout device that has only the core native apps (such as phone, settings, messages, photos etc) and the required business apps on the main home screen page. After that, if a person wants to drag a shortcut to the calculator app (for example) out the home screen, they can do that from the app library.
I realize that I can create a conf profile that HIDES apps, but I don’t want to do that because it removes access to that apps, not just the shortcut.
I don’t want to force a permanent home screen layout on all devices.
The question is, can I create a prestaged device group and apply a home screen layout to it, that moves all those widgets and non core native apps to another screen? This is with the understanding that when ready to deploy the device, it would no longer be in the prestaged group and the home screen layout config would be removed. What would happen then? Would all the widgets and shortcuts rearrange themselves back to the main home screen page, or would they remain on that 2nd page where they were forced to be when the home screen layout was enforced?
Is that a way for me to keep the main home screen page clutter free and move all the “junk” to other pages?
If so, it may be possible to simply edit the home screen after the layout config is removed, and delete those other pages, effectively mass deleting all the undesired shortcuts without uninstalling them.
Respectfully,
Robert