Supervised mode gives you basically all the cool options post IOS 12. That said, it’s been about 4 years since I’ve done any of that registration stuff and I know it changed a lot during the pandemic. So it could be easier now.

Configurator if you have a MacOS device already and want the OG. Plus it does allow for device supervision. Although you may have to register as an enterprise system for that. That’s really going to be the key thing here as last time I recall signing my org up for MDM we had to provide tax documents.

Apple uses JAMF, and their prices are so low and it’s so easy that for strictly Apple devices I’d go that route. I do believe there is an on prem version of Jamf as well, but you still pay yearly for it.

There’s also Hexcloud, whatever VMware is calling there’s now, and technically sccm can do device MDM.

Main benefits come from supervised mode. On iPads you can enable multi user support with sign in. You can remove access to messaging or other apps, but beyond that the differences between MDM and parental locks aren’t as wide.

This YouTube video is clearly done by someone who’s both never worked in schools, and never been at a level that meant you had to deal with budgets. Schools are purchasing less Chromebooks because funding for them dried up in most cases. During the pandemic a rush of federal and state funds kicked in and companies like CDW literally 10x their CB sales over night. Beyond that a ton of schools invested HEAVILY in technology and apps over the pandemic. Now that 99% of classrooms are back in person that spending has gone towards facility and in classroom tech upgrades which Chromebooks and Google apps aren’t part of. Beyond that a lot of schools during the pandemic had facilities they realized needed upgrading. Any leftover state and federal funds from those have been getting shifted. ESSR funds are a great showcase of this. Early ESSR 1 and 2 funds went towards CBs, Zoom/Meet licenses, and other cloud based solutions. ESSR 3 funds are being shifted towards facility upgrades and repairs. Beyond that schoology/Canvas/Blackboard aren’t really GSuite or even classroom competitors. Hell in most districts I’ve worked in we had two or three of them at the same time. While Google isn’t as talked about right now it’s not like it’s going away. Schools just aren’t reliant on cloud based solutions ATM. I suspect (and am already hearing it from clients) that in 2024 lots of districts will have ballot initiatives to increase taxes for local schools to fix facilities, but new textbooks, and replace existing and aging in classroom tech. Google doesn’t offer any of those.

My first “smart watch” was a pebble and I still think it was the best. People want everything to do everything these days rather than pebble which did watch stuff well and for days without charging, while simply showing you phone notifications. It wasn’t complex, didn’t offer a ton of extras, but it just worked well.

Metro UI was and still is a sexy AF interface. The widget tiles had a motion to them that was delicate and beautiful. It was just such a beautiful OS. I’ve kept most of the phones I’ve ever owned because I like them and of the 10 or so I’ve done through over the last 13 years especially my two favorites are my windows phones an HTC 8x and a Nokia Lumia 1020.

Windows Phone and webOS were amazing. Not just for their time, but even today. Major advancements in mobile OS’ came from WebOS like multi window task managing and my favorite feature of all came from Windows Phone. The most perfect on screen keyboard man has ever made. Specifically with audio. It had click sounds that were specific to a region of the keyboard and it was a low tone that was audibly pleasing. I wish we still had the same levels of competition that we did back in the day. Link to a video about the pleasing typing sounds on windows phone