In education environments, apps are obtained in volume via Apps and Books in Apple School Manager. In order to determine whether an app fits school curriculum, an administrator or content manager can access additional information about an app such as its description, age rating, and more from Apple School Manager by tapping “View Details” on the app’s listing in Apps and Books. Approved apps are then distributed in volume to students via Device Management, either with a device-based assignment model or an Apple-account-based assignment model.
Personal Apple Accounts or Managed Apple Accounts?
Apple recommends that schools use Managed Apple Accounts. With student Managed Apple Accounts, consumer App Store downloads and purchases are not possible. School administrators can also restrict the use of personal Apple Accounts entirely on school-owned devices in the Access Management section of Apple School Manager.
What about cases where the consumer App Store was used in the past?
Some schools may have used consumer App Store purchases in special cases where the app developer’s business model, involving in-app purchases, was not supported by Apple School Manager. App developers do have ways to support these school customers purchasing in volume, however. Their options, which include the use of custom apps, are described in a prior community post.
Adopt Managed Apple Accounts in your school
Managed Apple Accounts offer great value to schools, with 200 GB of free storage available to each account, and student-appropriate feature restrictions built in. These accounts can be federated with your existing identity provider, so you do not need to set up Apple-specific accounts for this purpose.
If you have any questions about moving to Managed Apple Accounts, please reach out to your contacts at Apple. We want to make this a successful transition for you.
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