iPad iPad for school and AirWatch?

[PowerBook-G5]

Mods, if this is in the wrong thread, please move it. Thanks!

Firstly, I am planning on buying an iPad Air 2 (64GB) on Friday for my own personal use.

Just yesterday, my school sent all students/parents an email announcing the new iPad program for the 2015-2016 school year. First, the students/parents are required to buy a 32GB iPad Air (at the minimum) to use for schoolwork. At this point, I was thinking that I would just use the Air 2 I am planning to buy, until I read the next line of the email. The iPad that is owned by the students/parents must have this AirWatch management app on it, which I am totally not fine with. I checked out this management app on their website, and it appears to give them WAY too much control over the device, which is not ok. It's not that I'm doing anything wrong, but I just expect privacy on a device that is not owned by the school.

So now I have thought this through, and it seems that the best thing for me to do is to have two separate iPads. I'd rather not login to my iCloud account, allow them to restrict apps and settings, etc and them see what I've been doing, so keeping the "professional" and "personal" aspects of my device usage separate seems like the best thing to do for my privacy. What I would like to do is purchase an iPad Air 2, 64GB for personal usage, and get an iPad Air (first gen, 32GB) for the lowest price possible for school.

I was looking on the Apple refurbished store and saw one (Air 1) for $389, but would like to know where/how it would be possible to get one for a cheaper price, preferably from Apple/an authorized reseller.

Finally, does anyone have any experience with the "AirWatch" app/"management" system? Any extra info would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[harrypham]

Is this joke? What type of school in the United States mandating students to buy iPads ?

Although iPad is my favorite device (I buy iPad every year) and I also use it for my college life, I think it should be an option rather than must-have device in school or college..

 

[BruiserB]

My company requires anyone wanting to access company e-mail on their personal iDevices to install AirWatch software. It's required to allow them to remotely wipe the device if it is lost, stolen, or employment is terminated. This is because company e-mail is considered company confidential information and it is their property....I understand their rationale. My company has told us that this is the only functionality of AirWatch that they have implemented. Once installed and setup, it functions very transparently on my iPhone. No interaction with the app is ever needed, it does whatever it does in the background.

However, AirWatch itself has many more capabilities so you will want to find out which capabilities the school is implementing. My understanding is that it can be used to monitor which apps are installed on the iDevice. I'm not sure if it can track web activity, but that wouldn't surprise me. It can also be used to track employee/student location...so some companies probably use it to make sure employees are where they are supposed to be. We've been assured that this functionality isn't in use at my company and I tend to believe it as we do have high standards of ethics. You may want to ask the school to provide a published list of what they will use AirWatch for. Since you are installing it on a personally owned device, you should have the right to know. Then you can choose whether or not you trust that they are telling you the truth. I would wonder why a school needs to implement this; they really aren't protecting confidential information. If they are using this to snoop on student use of the device, they should make clear to students and parents what is and what isn't permitted and when they are monitoring use. Are they only monitoring during the school day, or 24/7? On a parent/student owned iPad, this monitoring would be questionable.

 

[PowerBook-G5]

Thanks for the info, it's a private school, and they said that they want the students/parents to buy the device to "keep the costs of tuition down" which I (and others at the school) call BS on. If the school bought the iPads for the students, then the overall cost would be less due to educational discounts/bulk purchasing from Apple, no? Also, they stated when the parents/students buy the devices, it:

"ensure proper usage of the devices, maintain security when dealing with online resources, and allow students and teachers to interact effectively with the devices"

and

"give students a clear sense of ownership over their devices"

@BruiserB: So far they have only sent the one email about the topic, and have stated that in the "coming weeks" they will provide more information. If they do not provide a list of what they claim to be doing with the service, then I will confront the director of the IT department about it.

 

[brand]

If the school bought the iPads for the students, then the overall cost would be less due to educational discounts/bulk purchasing from Apple, no?

No. The educational and/or volume discount that Apple extends to institutions is very very small. The added overhead of managing and maintaining devices owned by the institution would certainly render whatever discount that was given null. Look into the LA Schools deal with Apple and what discount they didn't get to see how little it is.