This article was published on March 7, 2012

Apple releases Apple Configurator: A free app for schools & businesses to manage mass iDevices


Apple releases Apple Configurator: A free app for schools & businesses to manage mass iDevices

Following today’s Apple Event, Apple has just released Apple Configurator, an app that “makes it easy for anyone to mass configure and deploy iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch in a school, business, or institution.”

Apple Configurator is likely of the same variety as what Apple uses in its own stores to reset its showroom devices, but now it’s available for organizations and schools to make updating and resetting devices effortless. This should break down a few major barriers that kept organizations from widely adopting the devices before.

From Apple:

Three simple workflows let you prepare new iOS devices for immediate distribution, supervise devices that need to maintain a standard configuration, and assign devices to users. Quickly update 30 devices at a time to the latest version of iOS, configure settings, and install apps and data for your students, employees, or patrons.

Apple Configurator can be used by larger organizations and businesses to set up new devices, install enterprise apps, and enroll each device with a Mobile Device Management solution for remote management by an IT administrator. It is perfect for the classroom or student lab where devices need to be quickly refreshed and kept up to date with the correct settings, approved policies, apps and data. Apple Configurator can also be used to personalize devices with data and documents for specific users.

The app is free to download today for anyone looking to keep track of iDevices in volume. All in all, it’s a management tool that should have already been released. With Apple’s growing focus on education, this is most definitely a necessary step that the company must take.

➤  Apple Configurator (free)

You might also want to check out how Apple is partnering with a Philadelphia design school to provide new students with iPads.

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