The Problems with Sharing the IPads in a School...

If you're sharing your iPads in your school in the senario of a cart of iPads being signed out by a number of different teachers every day, you've probably encountered one of its most glaring shortcomings -- the iPad was designed primarily as a one-person gadget.  Most of the apps typically only supports a single user account that may be hooked to the email setting of your iPad.. That's a major problem if you've bought the iPads to share with the entire school.   Now there is an app that lets multiple users share a single iPad and maintain separate identities.

Our Pad lets a number of users access a single iPad, each with their own separate password-protected accounts.  It may not be the answer to every problem you may encounter, it's made for one family who want to share a device, but that doesn't mean you can't use it in a different area.  

Our iPad does not actually create separate log-ons and user accounts like you'd expect with an OS like Windows. Instead, it's an app that sets up any number of unique accounts for identity-driven services like Gmail and Facebook. That means most of the apps on your iPad are still community property, but there's a firewalled zone users can go to to get webmail, so this helps when it comes to emailing your work in programs like ComicLife, and such, that use the email setting on your Pad.Right now, Our Pad supports Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Twitter, and Facebook, with more services promised. Users don't need to enter passwords to get to their accounts; the program recognizes a user-specified lock pattern for easy access. It automatically signs users out when the iPad is idle or goes to sleep for added security.  

This may solve some of our problems, we'll see if we can bust this program or not.   As LifeHacker stated "It's not as good as Apple allowing multiple user logins, but it works well enough so people who share an iPad don't have to constantly log in and out of social networks and emails when they hand it over."  I'm also considering how many users can you put on this IPad?  Not for every student I'm sure but can we not make generic email accounts and try that?  Will have to try.


So, here are some considerations and questions to answer in no particular order:

1.  How many users can you have on one IPad with this app?
2. Do you have to reset everything when you factory set your computers?  Or rather you can then go with the backup if you want?  Do you have to reset when you upgrade to a new OS system?  There's a lot of time and effort (close to an hour a pad) to update.
3. Can you break into the system?
4. Will this help the saving issue?
5. Will Dropbox have the same problem?
6. Do I need generic accounts (30 of them) to assign to a classroom of students to be able to use this feature?  
7. How do I fix the problem of Web 2.0 tools not working with IPads because of the flash?  
8. There is a dilemma of constantly updating all these apps.  So we have to limit the apps we use.

Hopefully these will be answered in a later blog.


To see more check out the reviews below:

AppAdvice

MacGasm

LifeHacker

This App supports the following:

❏ EMAIL    ✹ Gmail    ✹ Hotmail    ✹ Yahoo    ✹ ZohoMail    ✹ GoogleApps Mail (without SSO)    ✹ AOL    ✹ Inbox.com    ✹ Mail.com    ✹ Gawab.com    ✹ GMX    ✹ POBox.com 
❏ SOCIAL    ✹ twitter    ✹ Google+    ✹ Facebook     ✹ Myspace    ✹ LinkedIn    ✹ Bebo    ✹ Flixster    ✹ Friendster    ✹ Hi5    ✹ myYearbook    ✹ Orkut    ✹ BuzzFeed    ✹ VK    ✹ Hyves    ✹ Tumblr    ✹ fotki    ✹ tagged 
❏ BLOGS    ✹ Blogger (Blogspot) 
❏ MEDIA    ✹ YouTube    ✹ Last.Fm 
❏ CHAT    ✹ Meebo 
❏ PHOTOS    ✹ Picasa    ✹ Smugmug    ✹ Shutterfly    ✹ Shutterstock    ✹ Webshots    ✹ Flickr    ✹ Photobucket 
❏ EVENT    ✹ PunchBowl    ✹ Evite 
❏ CLOUD    ✹ Dropbox