Distributing Apps to iPads with age restrictions set

[mkimmel_us]

Hi everyone,

We have a group of 45 iPads in the hands of 5th grade students. Since the students in this grade take them home, we set them up as unsupervised, but have a profile on them that restricts app downloads based upon age restrictions. We now have an app that a teacher wants them to have that has the age restriction warning (it's an app with a built in web browser). Because of the age warning, the students are not able to install it from Self Service. Is there any way around this besides replacing their default profile with a new profile just for this?

Thanks

Mike

[lhscasper · Accepted solution]

Hi Mike,

my understanding is that even if you remove the profile, install the app, then re-install the profile, the App in question will be hidden once you re-install the profile.

We had big problems with the age restrictions on our devices earlier this year and in the end we had to remove it. The problem we had was that there didn't appear to be any consistency with the age limit of the app - for example some IM apps were 17+ and some were 12+ and no reason for the difference.

Cheers,
Chris.

One alternative might be to increase your age limit but don't give the kids access to install apps. If they don't have the password or can't install apps then they will only have the apps that have been already installed on the device.

[mkimmel_us]

Thanks Chris. Unfortunately, that will have to be our approach. We had intended to try to provide a "make it your own" iPad, but provide one safeguard for parents and teachers with the age restricting, but clearly we cannot do that while maintaining the intent of our deployment. So, I've created a revised profile, and begun pushing it out before removing the original.

Thanks for the answer.

Mike

[fgsdepinon]

Hi Mike,

Do your 5th graders have their own Apple ID? Or do you have a way of pushing out the Apps and having them install without the end user needing to enter an Apple ID/Password? We've been loking at the same problem with age restirctions, but have been installing all the Apps through Apple Configurator since our students don't have Apple IDs.

Thanks.

Enrique

[cdenesha]

I just finished testing this.

The age restriction is for the Device and doesn't look at the age of the iTunes account. (I was confused about this).

With the restriction in place, I assigned an app to the self service clip. The pretend user (me) was prompted to install an age restricted app (yes I promise I'm of age) - I think this prompt was standard from the App Store. It then showed Pending. I happened to exit the Self Service and saw it installing, and then the icon disappeared.

I removed the restriction, the apps showed up - they were installed and not available.

I re-added the restriction, the apps disappeared from the screen.

I am eagerly awaiting silent app installs when Apple is ready to roll that iOS 7 feature out. For now I'll install and update age restricted apps through Configurator.

chris

[jarradyuhas]

Mike, feel free to email me. I may have a solution for you. jtyuhas@geisinger.edu

[cdenesha]

Update. Configurator requires VPP license codes, which is fine. But the restriction for age still kicks in and the installed app is still missing. So I guess I'm stuck as well.

[mkimmel_us]

We ended up removing the restriction permanently because we knew we'd have to continue to deal with this issue. Sigh.

Thanks for the help!

Mike

[cdenesha]

Perhaps submit a feature request to Apple? I did.

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=8560