New Laptop - Over Four Years later

In 2012, I decided to purchase a gaming laptop; the Lenovo Y580. It was mostly a great laptop that was able to play older games at high settings and newer games at lower settings. Nearly four years later I replaced the Y580 with the Asus GL702VM gaming laptop.

In July of last year (2021), I managed to find the "Walmart edition" of the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro (L5P). That might sound like a bad thing, but finding one of these laptops in store represented a crazy bargain. The normal online price was $1529, but if you lucked into getting one in store, they were $1399. I had a routine of refreshing the Walmart page each morning. One day, it showed one in stock at the store about a 5 minute drive from me. I jumped in the car and went straight there.

So let's take a look at what has changed.

Processor

The processor change from the Y580 to the GL702VM was not particularly notable. They were both four core/eight thread processors. The i7 6700HQ in the GL702VM was faster, but not in any meaningful way.

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800H processor in the L5P is so much faster. First, it is an eight core/sixteen thread processor. Second, with all cores loaded it operates at a frequency roughly 20 percent higher than the i7 6700HQ could sustain. There is just no comparison. This is a HUGE jump that I did not see in my last upgrade.

Memory

In the Y580, I had 16GB of RAM in dual channel mode from the start. I did eventually upgrade the GL702VM to 32GB of RAM in dual channel as well. The L5P shipped with 16GB of RAM in dual channel, but I upgraded that to 32GB of RAM in dual channel fairly quickly.

Though both the GL702VM and L5P use DDR4 memory, the speed increased from 2133 MHz to 3200MHz giving the L5P considerably more memory bandwidth. The Ryzen CPU in the L5P is known to be sensitive to good, fast memory so making sure the memory improved along with the processor was important.

Storage

The L5P shipped with a 512GB NVMe SSD, twice the size of the drives of the previous two laptops and quite a bit faster. Of course, 512GB today is not nearly enough if you plan on gaming so I ordered an additional 2TB NVMe SSD because the L5P has two NVMe slots. It lacks a 2.5" drive bay, but that drive format is becoming less and less common.

GPU (Graphics Chip)

As I experienced going from the Y580 to the GL702VM, the GPU improvement in the L5P over the GL702VM is huge.

From generation to generation, the GPU went from:

• 2GB @ 64GB/s to 6GB @ 192GB/s to 8GB @ 448GB/s
• 384 cores @ 0.84 GHz to 1280 cores @ ~1.6 GHz to 5120 cores @ ~1.7 GHz, with generational improvements in between as well

As with the GL702VM when I first got it, the L5P can play any modern game with relative ease, and even has ray tracing capabilities for improved in-game lighting.

Display

The display of the L5P is really good. It increases the resolution from 1920 x 1080 to 2560 x 1600. It is much brighter than the GL702VM, and the refresh rate has jumped up to 165Hz (the GL702VM had a 75Hz display). It is a 16-inch display, so actually smaller than the GL702VM. I am having to use scaling in Windows to make things a little bigger and easier to see. As with the GL702VM, the L5P does have G-Sync, enabling an adaptive refresh rate.

The bezels around the L5P display are tiny relative to the previous laptops. Though I haven't checked exact overall size differences, the L5P doesn't feel much different.

Other Stuff

The L5P is amazing in so many ways. I have always wanted a laptop with ports at the back. This makes for a very tidy desk setup. The L5P has almost all of the ports on the back, with a couple on the sides for things like USB drives. The top and bottom of the laptop are metal and are a far cry from the fingerprint magnets that my previous two laptops were. Some people do not like the lighted Y logo on the top, but I am a fan.

It lacks a Thunderbolt port, but as it turns out this wasn't as exciting as I had hoped it would be back in 2016. There is a USB-C port that allows me to connect to a monitor that has USB-A ports. By plugging in this single cable, I get my monitor, keyboard, mouse, and webcam connected to the L5P. The only other plug needed is power.

Speaking of power, despite how much more powerful the L5P is than the previous models, the battery life has improved substantially. I used to struggle getting 2 hours out of the GL702VM. With the L5P I can normally manage 3 to 4 hours without much effort. I know I could stretch that out if I played around with the power settings.

All told, this is a much more significant upgrade than my previous one.

GeForce Now - The Way It's Meant to be Played?

The Way It's Meant to be Played is Nvidia's slogan used in games that are sponsored by Nvidia. I signed up for Nvidia's GeForce Now service and have been playing on it a little over the last week. I haven't really played enough for a review, or even a fair first impression. What I wanted to do first was provide some thoughts as to why I am trying Now, but not the other game streaming service.

First, I did not sign up for Google Stadia, though I was tempted at times. I'm glad I didn't. Early reviews of Stadia haven't been great. While Google has a lot of history and experience with streaming, that has been with "plain video". Live, interactive, and adaptive rendering of video games is an entirely different beast. There aren't many titles available for Stadia, and you still need to purchase the games in addition to the subscription service. There is also Google's notorious history of cancelled services. I can't help but wonder what happens should people purchase a whole bunch of games for Stadia, just to have Google decide to cancel the service a few years from now.

Let's compare and contrast the above with Nvidia's GeForce Now. Now has already been around in one form or another since 2013, giving Nvidia much more experience in this area than Google. Though Now also requires you to purchase games in addition to the subscription service, it uses game libraries that many people already have, including Steam. I have a fairly large Steam library, so I have a bunch of games I can play right out of the gate. Finally, though Nvidia has had a few products of their own that they cancelled or dropped support for, I am fairly certain their track record is better than Google's. Nvidia's awesome streaming box, the Shield TV, has received Android updates longer than any of Google's own Nexus or Pixel devices.

My current laptop (Asus GL702VM) has been really good, even though there have been a couple of frustrations along the way. I'm not really looking to buy a laptop just yet, but I think there are some promising upgrades coming to the gaming laptop market soon. Even though I want to wait until more compelling laptop upgrades are available, I can't help but want to check out some of the newer, more demanding games, and some of the games that utilize ray tracing. Enter GeForce Now. With the paid Now subscription, you are supposed to get the equivalent of an RTX 2080 GPU with all of its ray tracing capabilities, for $4.99 US / $6.49 CAD per month, and the first three months are free. The decision to try it out really is a no-brainer.

Fixing MacBook Pro Keyboard and Trackpad in Windows Boot Camp

After a recent major Windows 10 update in Boot Camp on my 2016 MacBook Pro, the integrated keyboard and trackpad just completely stopped working. I was able to connect an external USB keyboard and mouse so that I could continue using Windows, and confirm that everything else seemed to be working just fine.

The Boot Camp "Repair" option in the Programs and Features Control Panel did not restore any of the functionality. I managed to get things working properly again after a full re-install of the Boot Camp drivers. Someone has developed a utility to download the drivers directly in Windows, or you can follow these steps.

1. Boot into Mac OS and run Boot Camp Assistant.
2. Click the Action menu and select Download Windows Support Software. Make note of where the files are being downloaded.
3. Copy the files to a USB drive, or upload them to cloud storage somewhere (recommended for future use).
4. Reboot into Windows, copy the files from the USB or cloud, and run the setup.exe file. This will present a "Repair" option again, similar to the Control Panel option, but this really does reinstall all the drivers.
5. Reboot into Windows again.

I found the keyboard and trackpad began working immediately after the Repair/Install completed, but rebooted as recommended. After rebooting, the keyboard and trackpad again didn't seem to be working, but they started working normally less than a minute after the Windows login screen appeared.

Making the Switch: The move from Android to iOS

This is a follow up post to the previous post about switching from Android to iOS.

It has been about a month since I made the switch, and so far there haven't been any big surprises. I have argued for years that when you consider what you use a smartphone for these days, the day-to-day use of an iPhone versus Android are quite minimal. Most of what I (and pretty much everyone I know) do include email, web browsing, and some social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc). The experience of these activities really doesn't change much across devices.

There are things that I knew would be slightly different (and annoying). For example, I use Chrome as my browser across all devices. I do not want to use Safari, but Apple does not let you change the default browser in iOS. So, I sometimes have to click on a link to open a page in Safari, copy the link, close the tab in Safari (so I don't end up with 500 zombie tabs), then open Chrome and paste in the link.

Using iMessage and FaceTime with family is nice. Again, I wish iPhone users were more willing to use a messaging platform that was inclusive, but generally speaking they just aren't.

The resale value of Android phones that I mentioned in the previous post really hit home. I managed to sell my Samsung A5 2017 for roughly 25% of its original value. That hurt.

Overall, the transition has been relatively painless (apart from losing so much value in the resale of my Android device).

Making the switch: Moving from Android to iOS

I have used Android phones for nearly 10 years now. My first Android phone was the first Android phone; the T-Mobile G1. I transitioned through a few different phones, and was appreciative of the developer community that kept these phones up to date long after the manufacturers had abandoned them.

I did get tired of replacing my phone so often, but the combination of rapidly improving hardware and unstable unofficial Android ROMs made it hard to stick with a phone for more than a year or so.

Then I bought the Nexus 5. I bought it at launch. It was a phone with high-end specs and a $400 price. Google provided three years of updates for their Nexus line, and I kept my Nexus 5 for just over three years. It had a mediocre (at best) camera, and poor battery life, but I loved that phone.

I tried switching to the Axon Pro, another Android with high-end specs and reasonable price. Sadly, it only received one update despite being ZTE's flagship phone, and it was much larger than I wanted my phone to be. I switch again in less than a year to the mid-range Samsung Galaxy A5. It's not a bad phone, but it's not great and I honestly don't know how long Samsung plans to keep the A5 updated.

So, what kept me from Apple all those years, and what has changed?

Price was a big factor. The iPhone is a very expensive phone. Unfortunately, if I want to repeat my "Nexus 5" experience, I would need to look at getting one of Google's Pixel phones and long gone are the days of Google's flagship phone costing $400.

From a personal perspective, most of my family use iPhones. While I wished people would transition to a cross-platform messaging system (like WhatsApp), Apple has successfully sucked people into the iMessage/FaceTime vortex. I don't like it, but not liking something doesn't keep it from being a reality.

Phone hardware is also not changing as rapidly as it once did. Keeping a phone for over three years isn't as crazy sounding as it once was, as long as the manufacturer is still supporting it. This fall, Apple released iOS 12 for the iPhone 5S, a 5-year old device! I have a family member with that phone. It still works great, and it has current software! I am not aware of a single Android device that has official support after 3 years, let alone 5.

One final note is that every time I have changed my Android device, the depreciation was significant. I am blown away by the resale value of used iPhones. Maybe in the long run the iPhone won't be as expensive as it first seems.

So, I'm giving the iPhone thing a whirl. I know there will be things that drive me crazy, and only time will tell whether this experiment will be a positive experience.

Misadventures with Thunderbolt

The Promising Technology

Thunderbolt is a port technology by Intel, and first appeared on Macs in 2011. Originally, the primary use for Thunderbolt was as a video port (mini DisplayPort), though there were some other peripherals, such as external storage. With Thunderbolt 3, things got very interesting. The connector switched to USB Type-C, and the port included USB compatibility. The peak bandwidth was also increased to 40Gbps, opening up many possibilities for extremely high bandwidth devices such as external graphics. Even better, Thunderbolt 3 could deliver up to 100W of power, either to devices attached to the computer, or to the computer from the attached device.

On paper, things sounded amazing. Reality, as is often the case, was quite a bit different.

In 2016 I purchased an Asus GL702VM gaming laptop. Asus proudly advertised "Onboard Intel® Thunderbolt™ technology" that "gives you single-cable data and signal transmission rates of up to 40Gbits/s". I had kept my previous gaming laptop for 4 years, and the only reason I upgraded from it was the aging graphics chip it used. I figured a Thunderbolt 3 port would allow me to upgrade the graphics chips down the road, extending the life of the laptop.

At work, to support our Mac users, I use a 2016 MacBook Pro with 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports.

This year, we decided that new laptops acquired for staff should also include Thunderbolt 3, and that we could start looking for a universal docking station for use with any laptop going forward. We ordered a Dell Latitude 5480, which reviews showed as having a Thunderbolt 3 port.

Things were looking promising for Thunderbolt 3; the one port to rule them all.

And then...

I recently acquired a Gigabyte Aorus GTX 1080 eGPU (external graphics) box. Graphics cards are extremely expensive due to the cryptocurrency mining craze, but somehow the Gigabyte eGPU managed to be the cheapest GTX 1080 available. While researching eGPU configurations for my Asus laptop, I discovered that the Thunderbolt 3 chip Asus used was an "LP" version that only worked at 20Gbps (half of Thunderbolt 3's advertised peak speed). Asus does not list this anywhere on the product page, and this chip is essentially Intel's dirty little Thunderbolt 3 secret.

Next, our order for the Dell Latitude 5480 came in, along with the Thunderbolt 3 docks. I connected the dock to the Dell and discovered that only a specific configuration of the 5480 (with a completely unrelated GeForce 930MX graphics chip) includes Thunderbolt 3. The model we received has a regular USB Type-C port. Fortunately we were able to return the laptops and order replacements with the Thunderbolt 3 port, but Dell is needlessly creating confusion on this laptop. If you've been considering it, be careful ordering.

Finally, I connected the Dell Thunderbolt 3 dock to the 2016 MacBook Pro. Nothing. Apple has a "whitelist" of supported Thunderbolt 3 devices, and unsupported devices simply won't work. There is a hack that removes Apple's arbitrary and artificial device check. Once I went through those steps, the dock functioned mostly OK; everything worked but only one external display can be used.

Someday?

Perhaps there is some hope for Thunderbolt 3. Intel is making Thunderbolt 3 royalty-free, so it may start showing up in more devices. I just hope that laptop manufacturers stop using the slower version of Intel's Thunderbolt 3 chip, or at least are more clear which chip they are using. Other Thunderbolt 3 docks are supported by Apple (though they are significantly more expensive of course), and offer Windows compatibility as well. Although I could say I hope that Apple removes their ridiculous "supported" check, Apple's history makes that scenario unlikely.

Putting ICE on IT

I have worked in what is traditionally viewed as "IT", or Information Technology for a very long time now. However, since I began working in the Faculty of Education at Brock University, my initial IT position has evolved in wonderful and important ways. To support the Teacher Candidates and our faculty, I became increasingly involved with what has been traditionally viewed (apologies for the redundancy) as Educational Technology.

Over the last few years, I have realized that neither IT nor ET can adequately capture what is truly happening in education, from K-12 through higher education.

There are many technologies that enable teaching, learning, and research. Some technologies are commonly used in education, but can hardly be described as educational technology. Examples include presentation tools and learning management systems. I am more inclined to describe these as Instructional Technologies (though IT already exists as a separate entity). Similarly, technologies such as video conferencing and shared document editing are commonly used in education, but are better described as Collaboration Technologies. There are indeed Educational Technologies, but which category they fall under depends on their specific use. Tablets are a good example.

Almost hand-in-hand with these technologies there tend to be associated staff members, focused on specific areas.

For several months now I have been considering a more holistic approach; a combination of Instructional, Collaboration, Educational, and Information Technology. Although I am not a huge fan of acronyms, I feel that describing all of the relevant technology pieces would be a little too cumbersome.

Welcome to ICEIT.

This is more than just a name. It reflects that these individual pieces are stronger together; that there needs to be a collaborative approach to technology. Each letter does not represent an individual territory to be claimed by individual staff or units. It is a whole, and all of the members need to work together for it to be effective.

I look forward to the coming months as we start to look at this approach in the Faculty of Education.

Bashing a broken feature of Apple Configurator 2

I have commented before on some of Apple Configurator 2's (AC2) broken features. There are even some new annoyances that have come to light that make me wonder if Apple hired some high school students for a weekend to program AC2.

One of the biggest things that Apple broke in AC2 that worked just fine in Configurator 1 (AC1) is related to the device names. If you manage a large set of shared iPads, you probably need to fully wipe the iPads from time-to-time to clear out personal user data. Wiping the iPads with a Prepare job is easy enough. Unfortunately, when you run the Prepare job, AC2 resets the names of the iPads and completely forgets the previously assigned names! This is a huge problem when you're trying to troubleshoot issues with a specific iPad. In AC1, the iPads would get renamed to the previously assigned name. I have no idea why Apple removed this functionality in AC2.

In my previous post, I described how to use AC2 in combination with AC1. The Prepare is done via AC2 (which has some iOS 9+ specific Prepare options not found in AC1), and then run AC1 to rename the iPads. Unfortunately, we just replaced the Macs used to manage our iPads and AC1 doesn't just want to rename the iPads, but now wipes them too (undoing the Prepare job). There may also be people out there who don't have AC1 (and don't feel comfortable retrieving it from some sketchy download site).

Bash to the rescue!

AC2 does include a very handy command-line utility that can be used in bash shell scripts to both capture the current device names, and apply those names back to the right iPads. To ensure the command-line utility is installed, click the Apple Configurator 2 menu, and choose "Install Automation Tools...". Now to create the files you will need.

First, let's create a mapping of device ID to current name. Make sure all of the iPads you want to manage are connected. Open a Terminal window and run the following commands.

mkdir ~/Desktop/Rename
/usr/local/bin/cfgutil list | sed -e 's/.*ECID: 0x/0x/' | sed -e 's/[ ]*UDID: .*Name: /,/' >> ~/Desktop/Rename/ipad_lookup.txt

Note that is a tab between the [ ]. You cannot just hit the tab key in Terminal for a tab. You must first press CTRL+V, then the tab key.

This will create a CSV (comma separated values) text file with the device ID to name mapping in a folder called "Rename" on your desktop. Save this file (make a backup somewhere). You don't want to lose it. Open the file with a text editor to make sure all of the iPads are listed. You should only need to run this command once unless you add more iPads or decide to rename them.

Once you have the above file, you can safely run a Prepare job. After the Prepare job is done, you will need a script to rename the iPads. Rather than give full details about how to create a script here, I will simply refer you to another site describing the process. It isn't hard, and you just need to do this once. Simply follow the steps there, copying in the following lines into the script.

#!/bin/bash
WORKDIR=~/Desktop/Rename
/usr/local/bin/cfgutil list | sed -e 's/.*ECID: 0x/0x/' | sed -e 's/.UDID:.*//' > $WORKDIR/connected_iPads
while read ECID; do
  IPADNAME=`grep $ECID $WORKDIR/ipad_lookup.txt | sed -e 's/.*,//'`
  /usr/local/bin/cfgutil -e $ECID rename "$IPADNAME"
done < "$WORKDIR/connected_iPads"
rm $WORKDIR/connected_iPads

Make sure to save the script in the Rename folder on your desktop. I named the script file "renameConnectediPads.sh".

That script first detects all connected devices. For each connected device, it looks up the unique device ID in the previously created ipad_lookup.txt file, and renames the iPad accordingly. You can run this script while AC2 is running, and watch the names change as the script runs.

There you have it. Bash scripting is extremely powerful, and in just a few lines it solves one of the most annoying problems with AC2.

The Physical Web

This will just be a quick post for an experiment over the next few days.

If you are at FETC 2017 and get notified about this post, take a look around. I should be nearby. Introduce yourself and let me know your experiences with beacons and the physical web.

For those of you reading this and wondering what the heck is the physical web, take a look at bkon.com's Physical Web Q&A.

As for my own personal experiences, I have yet to stumble across a single beacon in my travels. Maybe that will change this week since this is the first large technology conference I will be at since enabling the physical web settings on my device.

New PC Laptop - Nearly Four Years Later

I purchased a Lenovo Y580 laptop three years, ten months ago. I blogged about that experience, and talked about its specs, particularly compared to the MacBook Pro of the time. I was able to put together a relatively powerful laptop for less than $1400 (Canadian). Of course, that was back when the Canadian dollar was pretty much at par with the US dollar.

I started to feel the "upgrade bug" this year, and had a pretty good feeling some technological features would come together to make it a good time to purchase my next computer. The Lenovo Y580 was my first gaming laptop, and it really was a (mostly) good experience, so I'm sticking with a laptop again this time around.

After looking at several models, I found the Asus GL702VM. This laptop ships in two versions; one with a 256GB SSD for $1599 US and another with just the 1TB hard drive for $1399US. You can pick up a 256GB SSD for much less than $200, so the cheaper model is a wiser choice. With an SSD added, the GL702VM is a higher price than the Y580 was 4 years ago (as I had it configured), but only slightly. Unfortunately, the Canadian dollar is only worth about 75 cents US, so in Canadian dollars there is a pretty large difference.

So, how big of a difference is there between these two mid-range laptops launched nearly four years apart? Well, there are a few noticeable technological improvements, and there are some surprisingly similar details that really highlight how technological advancements have started to slow to a crawl.

Processor

The processor in the Y580 is an Intel Core i7 3630QM. This is the third generation 2.4GHz quad-core, eight-thread Intel Core i processor. The GL702VM has a sixth generation Core i7 6700HQ, a 2.6GHz quad-core, eight-thread processor. PC Perspective ran comprehensive benchmarks comparing Intel Core processors from the second generation through the sixth. The improvements from the 3rd- to 6th-gen Core i7 processor range from 5% to 50%, but most falling around the 15% to 20% range. This assumes that the processors are running at the same speed, but the i7 6700HQ has a 200MHz advantage.

However, these improvements need to be put into context. The improvements PC Perspective saw in games was exaggerated by using a dual-video card setup that is not only known to be CPU intensive, but also more expensive than most gamers can afford. Some of the benchmarks are referred to as "synthetic" because they are directly measuring CPU performance and aren't actual programs that a user would run.

So, the real question is, does the new laptop "feel faster" in the day-to-day applications that I run? In short, no. I imagine I could get figures accurate to a fraction of a second, but I ran various tests simultaneously between the two laptops and then just observed how long a task would take. To try to make it a "fair fight", I reformatted the Y580 with a fresh install of Windows 10. Start up, shut down and rebooting times were virtually identical. Most programs launched slightly faster on the new Asus laptop, but generally this would mean less than two seconds difference. Application loading aside, the new laptop doesn't actually feel any faster for general use. There were some instances where the new laptop performed quite a bit better, but I am certain that it had little to do with the processor. I'll touch on those later.

Memory

From the start, I had configured the Y580 with 16GB of RAM running in dual channel (two 8GB memory modules). Although 8GB of RAM is normally sufficient for most users, I like to run virtual machines on my computer, so more RAM is definitely better. What about the GL702VM? It has one 16GB RAM module. Of course there has been a transition to a newer type of memory (DDR3 to DDR4), but there are few applications that benefit from slightly faster memory in any significant way. In fact, the total memory bandwidth will probably be slightly lower on the new laptop since the new DDR4 memory is only running in single channel compared to the dual channel configuration of the DDR3 memory.

So, after nearly four years, I have the exact same amount of RAM in my new laptop.

Storage

Solid state drives (SSDs) have been rapidly gaining in popularity over the last several years. Even in 2012, I knew that any system (laptop or otherwise) that I would get would have to have an SSD. For years, traditional hard drives were the primary storage device in computers. As processors, RAM, graphics chips, and virtually every other component in a computer were getting significantly faster every year, hard drives were only getting incrementally faster. Hard drives have a way of making even the most powerful computer slow to a crawl, especially while starting up or launching an application.

So, when I ordered the Y580 I added in a 256GB SSD. That SSD is still working great today and uses an interface known as SATA (mSATA, SATA III to be precise). When ordering the GL702VM, I managed to get a really good pre-order price on the model with the 256GB SSD. Despite Asus' own product page bragging about the new, faster NVMe SSD interface, the SSD they pre-install is still based on SATA. Although it uses the same interface as the older SSD, the new SSD is definitely faster. When dealing with large programs, such as games, the new laptop would finish loading noticeably sooner. As an example, the graphics benchmark Unigine Valley finished loading roughly 8 seconds faster on the GL702VM.

While SSD's are fast, they are quite a bit more expensive than traditional hard drives. If you want to store lots of files (pictures, videos, etc), you are probably going to still need a hard drive. The Y580 came with a 1TB 5400rpm hard drive. The GL702VM ships with a 1TB 7200rpm hard drive, so it is technically faster, but it makes little difference in how fast the laptop feels.

One other noticeable difference between the two laptops is something that the new laptop lacks; optical storage. The Y580 included a Blu-ray reader. The lack of an optical drive in a new laptop is hardly a surprise today. I tend to be more surprised by how many laptops still include one. There is an advantage to not having an optical drive as well; it helps keep the weight and size of the laptop down. This new, more powerful laptop is actually slightly lighter than the old one (2.7 kg vs 2.8 kg), and is quite a bit thinner (24mm vs 36mm).

Again, like with the RAM, I am getting a laptop with the exact same amount of storage, and drives that are only slightly faster than I have been using for nearly four years.

GPU (Graphics Chip)

Right off the bat I will say that this is one area where the new laptop has definitely improved in a huge way. The new GTX 1060 graphics processing unit (GPU) has over three times as many graphics "cores" that are two generations newer than the GTX 660m found in my old laptop. Those cores in the GTX 1060 also run at clock speeds nearly double those found in the GTX 660m. There is three times as much graphics memory on the GTX 1060 (6GB vs 2GB), and that memory has three times as much bandwidth as the GTX 660m (192GB/s vs 64GB/s). When it comes to graphics intensive applications, like games, there is no comparison between the new and old laptops.

The GL702VM is able to play any modern game with relative ease. The Y580 can play those same games, but many graphical details must be scaled back and/or the game must be run at a lower resolution. Finally, this is one area where four years has made a huge difference.

Display

I have to admit that I didn't need a new laptop; not really anyway. The Y580 was only starting to show its age when it came to the latest video games with high-end system requirements. I could have still played those games; they just wouldn't have looked as good. There is one reason that I needed to replace my laptop. At 45 years old, I have started to notice that a 15.6 inch 1080 display is getting to be just a little too small. This time I went a little bigger; the GL702VM has a 17.3 inch 1080 display.

Remarkably, the new laptop is barely larger than the 15.6" Y580. The bezels around the display are actually quite small. The GL702VM is only about 30mm wider, and 25mm deeper than the Y580.

Other than the size advantage, the new display is capable of refreshing at up to 75Hz. Many laptops (including the Y580) have a refresh rate of 60Hz. I say "up to 75Hz" because the new laptop includes a technology called G-Sync. This is an important technology for gaming. There are much better descriptions of G-Sync out there, but in short it lets the laptop refresh the display when a new full frame is ready rather than at a fixed rate. With fixed refresh rates, games suffer from one of two issues (the user chooses which). You can either tell the graphics chip to draw the frames whenever they're ready, or tell it to synchronize fully drawn frames with the refresh rate. The former leads to an issue known as tearing; the top portion of the screen has part of one frame, while the bottom of the screen is showing part of the following frame. The latter choice causes stutter; the graphics chip may not be finished drawing a full screen when the display is ready, so it waits for the next refresh cycle.

The new display uses an IPS panel compared to the old laptop's TN panel. IPS panels have much better colours and brightness, and wider viewing angles.

Other New/Cool Stuff

Although there are some aspects of the new laptop that fail to impress when compared to my old laptop, there are definitely some cool technologies that I am excited about.

The first is the Thunderbolt 3 port. This port uses a USB Type-C connector (which is becoming more common every month), but is quite a bit faster than a regular USB 3.1 port (40Gbps vs 10Gbps). One of the most exciting Thunderbolt 3 accessories is an external GPU dock. This makes it possible to add a full desktop graphics card to the laptop down the road. Hopefully the new laptop is as good to me as the Y580, and it should last me even longer than 4 years.

Another technology that is "under the hood" is the ability to use an NVMe SSD. NVMe SSDs are quite a bit faster than (the already fast) SATA-based SSDs. Again, this is a technology that should help keep this laptop feeling quick for several years.

One final reason to get excited about the GL702VM is that it is VR capable and meets the requirements of the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift VR headsets. Of course, these headsets are quite expensive right now, but at least I know the laptop will be able to handle VR.

Mainstreaming VR

Two of the major players in the world of VR tech are the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift. These two VR headsets may take slightly different approaches to creating immersive VR, but they both approach the 3D aspect of it in very similar ways, and have nearly identical system requirements. The system requirements themselves are quite steep, especially when it comes to the chip in the PC used to process graphics.

In the last month, the two major graphics chip makers have released new graphics cards for PCs that help make VR slightly more affordable. At the end of June, AMD released the $200 (US) Radeon RX 480 graphics card, and in mid-July Nvidia released the $249 (US) Geforce GTX 1060.

What makes these cards so important to VR is the price. Prior to the launch of these cards, the cheapest video card that met the requirements of the Vive and Rift would typically have cost the consumer well over $300. Reducing the "cost of entry" to any technology by $50 to $200 is a great step. In March, one site priced out a system that met the minimum system requirements for VR, and it totaled $939. The video card used in that build was $309, and there are now Radeon RX480 cards priced at $199. That drops the total PC build price by nearly 12%!

Recent rumours point to the Nvidia GTX 1060 making its way into laptops, mostly unchanged from the chip in the desktop video cards. In the past, Nvidia has launched "M" (mobile) versions of their graphics chips that were significantly different from their desktop parts. Laptops based on Nvidia's past x60 graphics chips could often be found for sale in the $1000 to $1200 range. The prices on laptops using Nvidia's previous generation of chips (the GTX 960) can be found quite a bit lower right now. That is a good sign that laptops using the new generation chips will likely be available soon. If the rumours about the mobile GTX 1060 are true, it is possible that fully VR capable laptops may be available for under $1200 in the very near future.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest barriers to VR headsets being mainstream is the cost of the headsets themselves. The Oculus Rift is $600 (US), while the Vive is an even heftier $800. When considering this as part of the total VR system, a price drop of $200 won't help get VR into the mainstream. That's OK for now. Perhaps by the time the headsets see a significant price drop, there will actually be apps, content, and games available that make it worth using VR.

Or maybe VR is the next 3D TV; a lot of hype that just fizzles out.

The best thing about the iOS 9.3 release

Anyone even remotely familiar with Apple knows that, alongside the new iPad and iPhone, there is a new version of iOS. The new software includes some great new features and updates, and at least one major feature that schools have been wanting for a long time.

There is a new Night Shift mode that may help users get better sleep. Notes can now be locked (passcode or Touch ID). Stills can now be extracted from Live Photos. There is even multi-user support for schools with shared iPads!

The multi-user support is something that we will want to explore as soon as possible. I know there are many schools that have wanted this feature for a long time. I still haven't had a chance to investigate exactly how it works, or how it impacts the deployment process, but that's where the actual best thing about the iOS release comes in. It's the timing.

Major iOS updates are typically delivered with the release of the new flagship iPhone. The problem is that, since the iPhone 4S, that has happened in the fall, just after all of a school's iPads have been deployed. Administrators are left scrambling trying to figure out the impact of the new software. Worse, Apple has made it easy for the user to go ahead and update devices, even if the administrator doesn't yet know the impact of (problems with) the update.

Now, I know this is just a "point release", and I know that iOS 10 (X?) will probably still be released in the fall. I'm just glad that this update, with such a major feature for schools, isn't landing after a new school year has just barely begun. Sure, May or June would be best, but September and October are probably the worst possible time for a new iOS release.

Training Challenges in the North

Iqaluit, Nunavut.

In February.

When I was first asked if I would be available to provide SMART Notebook training to teachers in Iqaluit, my main concern was that I did not have the gear to handle Canada's far north in the middle of winter. Sure, I had a parka, some gloves, and boots. That isn't uncommon for Canadians.

But there's a pretty big difference between winter in southern Ontario and northern Canada.

As it turns out, the weather wasn't nearly the challenge I thought it would be (even though my flight out did get cancelled due to a blizzard). I picked up some better boots, better mittens, a balaclava, and some snow pants, and ended up walking around quite a bit while in Iqaluit. It was a great experience, and I only fell through the snow once!

The real challenge of Iqaluit, from an educational technology training perspective, is the state of the Internet.

The Internet speed at the hotel would lead me to click on a web link, walk away to do something else, and come back to the computer a couple of minutes later. The speed at the school wasn't any better. In fact, the school Internet was further impacted by the government filters. I have to wonder how long it will take for officials to realize that the filters are increasingly ineffective, especially as students begin to bring their own data-enabled devices into the classroom. The filters also end up blocking useful teaching tools and valuable information (some of the SMART-related resources appeared to be blocked). SMART Response worked, but not particularly well and would not be usable for more than a handful of questions. To SMART's credit, the question web pages are actually quite small. Unfortunately, the school's Internet connection is so slow, the question pages would still take up to a minute to load on student devices. There is another delay between the student clicking to submit a response, and the response being "received" by the teacher.

Surprisingly, SMART Maestro, the iPad-enabled feature of Notebook, ran smoothly. This must mean that most or all of the network traffic required to mirror the SMART Board to the iPad must stay on the local network.

On my third day of training, I asked the teachers what their strategies were for integrating Internet-based materials into the classroom. In unison, several teachers replied, "We don't". This may seem like a shocking response in the 21st century, but it isn't a surprise once you've tried using the Internet in the school for a few days.

So, the solution could be to pre-download resources from home. The teachers did comment that their Internet speed at home was quite a bit better than the Internet at the school. This was a solution used to a limited degree by some teachers, but there was another problem. It seems that the best deal for Internet in Iqaluit only includes roughly 40GB of monthly data, and each additional GB is $15! Ouch! I can barely stay below my 275GB monthly allotment and have considered paying the additional $10/month to get unlimited bandwidth. That's great for me, but there is clearly a problem with "Internet equity" in Canada.

The CRTC is currently soliciting input on broadband connectivity in Canada. The completed questionnaires must be submitted by February 29, 2016, so go participate as soon as possible (but please just read a little further first).

Before you respond to that poll, just take a few moments. Forget about Netflix. Forget about iTunes. Think about your own child not having access to the Internet to research a school subject. Consider that other students across the country have relatively easy access to resources like Homework Help, Khan Academy, and a variety of other online learning resources. Many school districts are moving to Google Apps or Office 365, tools that help enable collaboration and 21st century skills. From what I experienced in Iqaluit, these tools would be virtually unusable.

Apple, FBI, ISIS, and Secrets

This goes significantly off-topic from what I normally talk about, but still revolves around technology (and even touches on the potential impact on education). The news about the FBI demanding that Apple unlock the phone of one of the San Bernardino gunmen is everywhere, and the FBI using the suffering of the victims' families to get what they want is not only immoral, it is irresponsible.

One of the most common arguments that comes up regarding encryption and secrets is that if you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide. This could not be further from the truth. Many businesses around the world depend on trade secrets, or keeping secret the development and progress of new products and technology. Law enforcement agencies may be protecting the identities of undercover agents, witnesses, or victims. You know, agencies like, say, the FBI. Can you say you have nothing to hide while still demanding answers about the breaches in security at Target, Neiman Marcus, and Michaels? More in line with education, schools and districts must also be sure they are keeping student information secure and private. This is not just something that should be done, but something that must be done. We all have "something to hide", even if we're not doing anything wrong.

The FBI is claiming they hope to discover information on the phone; information that will help prevent other terror attacks. This is highly unlikely, and the FBI knows it. The San Bernardino gunmen were a man and a woman. Islamic extremists (ISIS, Taliban) do not use women as "soldiers". This act of terror appears to have been "ISIS-inpired", but that is very different from "ISIS-plotted". The FBI can get access to phone records, even without access to the phone. They likely already have a good idea who the gunmen were in contact with, and there is little else they could discover from the phone itself.

Asking Apple to try to create a method to circumvent security measures puts far more people at risk than any possible gain from unlocking this one phone.

There is a belief that the burden on, or cost to, Apple to circumvent the security of the phone is relatively small because they are such a large and wealthy company. Again, this could not be further from the truth. If Apple is successful in gaining access to the phone, it calls into question, at least from the perspective of the public, the actual security of Apple's products. Apple could potentially lose contracts for large-scale deployments to government agencies, businesses, and yes, even school districts. The public perception of ineffective security could also cost Apple consumer sales. There are so many costs that go beyond the simple costs related to the hours required for Apple's developers to gain access to the phone's contents.

There isn't anything the FBI can do to bring back the victims of the attack, and it is disturbing that they are using the grief of the victims' families to advance some hidden and unrelated agenda.

Waiting on the next big thing

After recording the podcast following FETC this year, our group pondered why we didn't really see any major new technology.

I suggested that it might be related to the difficulties the major processor fabrication companies are having shrinking the chips used in our electronics. I quickly realized that this was a topic that my colleagues really had little knowledge of, and that most users of technology probably don't know much about the chips inside the gadgets we use every day.

This post is not intended to be an in-depth technical discussion. Hopefully I can provide a simple explanation of how our electronics have managed to get faster and do more things over the years, and give a quick overview of what is causing a slowdown in some areas of technology.

In 2006 Intel introduced the Core architecture of processors. These processors were manufactured on what Intel referred to as a 65nm (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter) process. The 65nm process had also been used in the later Pentium 4 processors. 65nm represents a measure of the process, but some "features" in the process are larger than 65nm while others can be smaller.

Late in 2007, Intel began producing processors on a 45nm process. While some might interpret this as being roughly 70% of 65nm, processors are generally rectangular and have area. This means that the 45nm process can create an identical chip in roughly 48% of the space used by the 65nm process (45^2 / 65^2 = 47.92...). The scaling isn't quite perfect, so the chips don't shrink by the same amount as the process naming implies. Still, you can see that chip manufacturers can pack a whole lot more transistors into the same amount of space used by the older process. Reduced size is not the only advantage to new, smaller processes; smaller processes use less power and generate less heat. The reduced size also normally means that a chip as complex as "last year's" high-end chip can be produced at a lower cost.

In early 2010, just over two years after introducing the 45nm process, Intel released chips produced on the 32nm process (roughly 50% in size compared to 45nm). In mid-2012, Intel had started using a 22nm process (roughly 47% in size compared to 32nm). The first sign of trouble was with chips from Intel being produced at 14nm (40% of 22nm). Intel released a very limited number of 14nm chips, targeted mainly at low power laptops. Higher powered 14nm desktop and laptop chips did not show up until 2015. Intel's roadmap also now shows that products based on their next process (10nm) is not due until late 2017.

Intel is not the only chip-making company around. Other big players include TSMC and Samsung. Despite the public disputes between Apple and Samsung, the processors in most iPhones have actually been manufactured by Samsung. The latest iPhones have started using chips manufactured by TSMC. Samsung and TSMC have also started to struggle to make chips smaller. Some rumours suggested that with the iPhone 6 (and 6 Plus), Apple was taking so much (of a limited) capacity from TSMC that other tech companies could not get access to the latest process. AMD and Nvidia are the two major graphics chip designers, and have their graphics chips manufactured primarily by TSMC. Neither company released graphics chips using TSMC's 20nm process.

Limiting the latest and greatest manufacturing technologies to a handful of companies means that only those companies have the potential to make noticeable improvements, but they may not be under pressure to do so. Apple seems to have capitalized on their nearly exclusive access to TSMC's advanced process. Benchmarks for the iPhone 6, and again with the 6S models, showed significant improvements in performance. Note that the iPhone is under competitive pressure from Android smartphones. Intel on the other hand faces little competition in their primary market of computer processors. Intel not only designs the processors, but also owns the manufacturing facilities for their processors. The performance improvements in processors from Intel have been relatively small (5-10% from generation to generation).

What about technology other than smartphones and computer processors?

We are starting to hear more about VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality). Oculus, probably the most recognizable name in VR, announced the system requirements for the Rift VR headset. The cost of building a system to meet those requirements is quite high. Here is a quote from that page, highlighting the importance of the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit).

Today, that system’s specification is largely driven by the requirements of VR graphics. To start with, VR lets you see graphics like never before. Good stereo VR with positional tracking directly drives your perceptual system in a way that a flat monitor can’t. As a consequence, rendering techniques and quality matter more than ever before, as things that are imperceivable on a traditional monitor suddenly make all the difference when experienced in VR. Therefore, VR increases the value of GPU performance.

Remember that AMD and Nvidia are the major source of graphics chips, and that they likely did not get access to 20nm? Relatively few computers meet the graphics requirements of the Rift.

Other areas of technology may also have been stalled by limited access to the newest chip manufacturing processes. Nvidia makes the chips in the tablet for Google's Project Tango, a computer-vision platform for detecting objects (think self-driving cars). This technology is relevant for robotics, a topic I discussed in the podcast.

While the trend toward a slowing in technological advancement continues, more companies are finally getting access to the latest manufacturing processes. AMD and Nvidia are planning products based upon 14nm and 16nm for release in 2016. AMD has stated that their upcoming graphics chips will make the largest leap in performance per watt in the history of the Radeon brand (AMD's primary graphics brand, introduced in 2000).

Hopefully this means we will see some new and really interesting tech at conferences next year.

Reflections on FETC 2016

This was my fourth trip to Orlando to attend FETC, and there were some notable differences from previous years. Our group was significantly larger than in previous years, and included faculty, staff, masters students, a PhD student, and representatives from companies that work closely with us. We wrapped up FETC with a brief podcast. I will expand on my comments in that recording, and talk about a some other things I noticed at FETC 2016.

When talking about the conference itself, the layout and size were noticeably different. The exhibit hall stretched from north to south, with the keynote area at the "back" of the convention center. The exhibit area was definitely smaller than it had been in previous years, but still large enough to keep attendees busy exploring booths.

As noted by my colleagues in the podcast, there wasn't much that was particularly revolutionary or innovative to be found at FETC. This seems to be a reflection of the market in general. We all seem to be waiting for the next "big thing".

While not exactly new, this seemed to be the year of the robot and maker spaces. I was particularly intrigued by Ozobot. I believe this is a great way to introduce young children to basic coding skills. The Ozobot will follow a path drawn out by magic markers, and simple instructions can be given to the Ozobot by simply alternating the colours drawn along the path. While a great implementation, I believe there are two challenges. First, what is the next step after the Ozobot? Once a child has mastered the instructions and "played", the Ozobot itself cannot go beyond its very basic programming. Second, the price tag of $50 USD is quite steep for such a simple robot that likely won't see much classroom time. A class set of 18 is $1000, which is not really a deal at all. Some extras are thrown in, but you give up the value of 2 Ozobots to get the extras. If the Ozobot was $20 USD, with a 25-unit bundle (with extras) at $500, I would be more excited.

Sessions and conversations around maker spaces almost always include, or even focus on, the topic of 3D printing. There were a few booths showcasing 3D printers, but it is interesting that none were from the "big players" (Epson, Canon, HP, etc). It does lead to concern about acquiring a device from a company that might not be around next year.

One "throw back" at FETC was typing instruction. There were several booths focusing on teaching typing skills. I have been told that this is a response to poor results in online tests where students that know the content are still doing poorly because they cannot type quickly enough to finish on time. I imagine these skills are also valuable for collaborative work on Google Docs or Office 365.

I have still been considering the question about what I hope or expect to see in the future for educational technology. Other recent events, including CES, showcased quite a bit in the VR/AR (virtual reality/augmented reality) space. I only saw a little of this at FETC. I know the system requirements for Oculus Rift are fairly demanding, and it is also very expensive. If that was the only option, I would understand why it didn't make an appearance at FETC, but Google Cardboard seems a reasonable choice for VR in the classroom. Hopefully we see more immersive and interactive uses of Cardboard soon.

Remote Student Participation

On Wednesday we learned that one of our students would need to participate in classes remotely. Starting Monday.

Of course the first suggestion volunteered to me was, "Can't we just Skype the student in?" Our classes are not standard university undergraduate lectures. Our instructors are typically modelling the K-12 classroom. They move around quite a bit, and the students participate in small group activities. Skype running on a stationary device was not going to work.

I had a pretty good idea that what I really wanted was a VGo, but there was no way we were getting the funds for that. Even if, by some miracle, we managed to convince "the powers" to buy a VGo, it was virtually impossible that the convincing, purchasing, delivery, and setup would happen before Monday morning.

A couple of years ago I discovered Swivl at an Ed Tech conference (I honestly can't remember which one). I encouraged our Instructional Resource Centre to purchase a couple of them for use by our students for their micro-teaching videos. The students record themselves delivering a lesson activity, and then review it to evaluate and adjust their teaching methods. The students would often setup cameras on tripods, or ask another student to do the recording. Neither method was ideal. A tripod did not allow the student to move around, and audio was troublesome in both scenarios.

With Swivl, the "teacher" wears a wireless tracker (with integrated microphone), and the Swivl base turns and pivots to follow the tracker. The recording device (typically a smartphone or tablet) sits on the base. A single, short audio cable connects the base to the device to record the audio from the mic integrated into the tracker. It really is impressive in its simplicity, and works quite well.

The problem is that Swivl's primary use and design is around recording lesson activities, not video conferencing. The Swivl base connects to the recording device using a male-to-male, 4-segment 3.5mm cable. This is a fairly standard plug found in pretty much every smartphone and tablet. It carries both the mic-in and audio out. Unfortunately, this cable runs directly from the Swivl base to the device, with no splitter or plug in the base for the audio out.

Our initial tests using Lifesize Video (the standard video conferencing solution used by our university) and an iPad confirmed that audio was being recorded from the mic in the tracker, but no audio would play back unless the base from the cable was unplugged from the iPad.

We decided to try a 3.5mm 4-segment to 2 x 3.5mm 3-segment splitter.

Adapter to break out the mic in and audio out connections

We actually had to use two of these adapters. One was used to convert the 4-segment mic out from the Swivl base to a standard 3-segment mic line. The second was connected to the iPad allowing us to plug in the mic from the Swivl base, and a set of external speakers.

Our Swivl telepresence setup

With everything plugged in, we started a Lifesize Video session and everything worked! The final bit was putting everything on a cart that could be easily moved between classes, taping together some of the cabling (to try to prevent instructors/students from unplugging cables from splitters), zip-tying some of the cables to tidy it up, and labeling plugs that couldn't easily be taped in place ("to iPad").

It would be nice to have the cart completely wireless, but we settled on a single power cord. The Swivl has a 4-hour battery life (estimate), and the student has back-to-back classes that total 5 hours. We also didn't have battery-powered speakers.

It would also be better if the remote student could control the direction of the Swivl rather than relying on the tracker, especially during the small group sessions. This is a feature of Swivl Cloud Live. Swivl Cloud Live is in beta, and I did submit the form to sign up. I see more experimenting in the next couple of weeks.

Friday morning we conducted a test session with the student and all went well. The first class is Monday morning. Fingers crossed.

Deploying Shared iPads the New-Old Way

After spending a couple of weeks just getting more and more frustrated at the mess Apple has made with Configurator 2 (AC2) and Profile Manager (PM), I discovered a way to use Configurator 2 along with Configurator 1.7 (AC1) to get the results I am actually after.

In AC1, it was relatively easy to wipe devices by restoring from a backup. The iPads would get wiped, apps pushed back out over USB, and the devices renamed. AC1 had no trouble remembering whatever name had been previously assigned to the iPad, and re-applying that name during the restore process. The renaming part is one of the areas where AC2 seems to fail. It's like it forgets device names during the restore. This is very bad when you want the device name to match the uniquely numbered name printed on the device itself.

The biggest problem with the continued use of AC1 exclusively for the deployment of the iPads is that it does not support the ability to skip all of the "Welcome steps" of iOS9+ (the Setup Assistant), and there are a lot of steps now. Following a restore, it is necessary to manually skip through the steps of not setting a passcode, region, location services, and more. You have to do this on every iPad, so it is not realistic to continue using AC1 exclusively for managing the iPads.

Aside from the renaming problem in AC2, there seems to be a major problem with app deployment. First, the new app deployment mechanism in AC2 does not use the old method of downloading apps via iTunes and importing the .app file; it requires you to use "Managed Distribution" for all of your apps whether they are paid or free. If you want to deploy apps over USB during the restore process, you have to give AC2 the VPP Apple ID. When I did this, it reported that it was going to revoke the authority of PM to manage distribution of apps! I am assuming that this also means I would only be able to use this single computer to manage our apps, which is not possible across multiple sites.

The final piece that AC2 seems to break is that all of our iPads end up in the wrong timezone (and thus show the wrong time). I think restoring from a backup may deal with this, but I'm not sure.

It seems to be lose-lose, but it's not.

Note: For the following method, you must still have AC1 installed, or be able to install it. I'm not sure if you can still download it, but we still had it installed on our computer used to manage the iPads.

To start, make sure that all of the iPads you want to manage are prepared and supervised by AC1. Assign all device names using AC1. Once complete, quit AC1 and run AC2. In AC2, use the Migration tool to import all of the information from AC1. Once complete, you will be able to manage the iPads using both AC1 and AC2! If you add more devices later, you will need to add the new devices in AC1 and use the Migration tool again, but otherwise you just need to go through this process once.

When you need to wipe a shared device (or devices), follow these steps.

Run AC2 and connect all of the devices. Apply a blueprint that Prepares the iPads and applies profiles. The Prepare options are where you can disable the various iOS Welcom Screen (Setup Assistant) options. It will warn you that the connected devices are going to be erased. Just tell it to go ahead.

Once the process completes (takes about an hour for us), quit AC2 and run AC1. Select the iPads you have just restored and click Refresh. AC1 will push out any apps and profiles that are supposed to be on the devices, and it will rename the devices with the previously defined names!

Unplug the iPads and you will find that the Welcome steps have been skipped (well, those that can be skipped), your apps have been restored, and AC1 even sets the right timezone. If you've installed the PM management profile, you can even use it to push new profiles and apps remotely from PM later.

As far as I can tell, this is the best way to manage a collection of shared iPads that need to be regularly wiped. I would love to hear from others if they have found a better way.

Deploying iPads the new way

Oddly enough, the thing I struggled with the most for this entry was the title. Here were some that went through my head at various stages of deploying (or preparing to deploy) a new batch of shared iPad Minis this past week.

• Apple Configurator 2 Challenges
• Apple Configurator 2 and Profile Manager Challenges
• Why does DEP need to exist?
• iPads for Schools: Only if You're 1:1
• Apple Hates You

Over the last few years, we have been downloading codes for use with Configurator 1.x, and happily deploying to various iPad carts from separate computers across three sites. Certain options in Configurator even made it relatively easy to wipe and restore the iPads when they were returned from our pre-service Teacher Education students, something that I imagine is important in any iPad deployment where the iPads are shared.

In addition to Configurator, we have been using Meraki for some management and deployment. Our most recent acquisition of a new batch of iPads for use in the program pushed us over the 100 device limit for using Meraki for free. We started looking at the various MDM options, and the cost quickly added up. This is where Profile Manager comes in. This is also where dependency madness began.

Profile Manager and Configurator 2 lead to updates being required for virtually everything else. OS X had to be upgraded to El Capitan on the computer running Configurator. OS X Server had to be upgraded on our Mac Pro, which in turn also required El Capitan.

So, with everything ready, I started the deployment process. Well, actually, several different deployment processes trying to figure out just how to adequately manage over 100 shared iPads.

Now, the iPads are kept in carts, and they are numbered. The new iPads have numbers inscribed on them. The old iPads have labels affixed. Well, Configurator lets you automatically number iPads during the Prepare process, so great, right? Sort of. Here are the options in Configurator 2.

1. Plug in all of the iPads and let Configurator 2 name them, randomly assigning numbers that do not actually correspond to the numbers on the iPads.
2. Plug in all of the iPads and assign them all the same name in the Prepare process. Next, unplug all of them. Finally, plug them back in one at a time and manually name them.
3. Plug them in and Prepare them one at a time, manually assigning the name.

In other words, all the options suck, and it gets worse.

When wiping and restoring the iPads to ensure no personal photos or data are on them (remember, these are shared iPads), Configurator 2 completely forgets which iPad had which name! Are you kidding me, Apple?! I tried several methods to restore hoping that the name would be retained, but it was all in vain. I ended up giving up and assigning the same name to all the iPads, knowing full well what the repercussions would be.

With Profile Manager configured, I downloaded the management and trust profiles, and started the Prepare process. Of course, a few of the iPads had issues during this process and didn't finish completely. No problem, right? Oh, wait. The iPads do not have unique names that correspond to the iPad numbers! Now I have to pull the iPads out of the cart in search of the problematic ones! 

The next step was deploying apps. Our paid apps will have to wait, because Configurator 2 does not support the spreadsheet method anymore. We can convert all of our old licenses, but this has to be coordinated across multiple locations and departments (the reason we purchased downloadable codes with separate spreadsheets to begin with). This is also where Profile Manager comes in. I began pushing the apps (50 of them) out to the iPads. The iPads are all connected to the same WiFi network, and based on the progress, it seems like it's going to be a multi-day process. The best part? It would need to do this every time we need to wipe the iPads! They're shared devices, so we need to wipe them regularly. Oh, and an iPad can fail during this process as well, which means manually trying to figure out which iPad is the problem.

OK. So, use Configurator 2 to push the apps out, right? When I tried to setup our VPP account on Configurator 2, I am told that it will remove the management from Profile Manager, so I lose the remote management capability! Is this for real?!

OK, OK. I'll make a backup of an iPad with the apps already installed, then restore that backup to the rest of the iPads! Nope. Restoring the backup to a test iPad not only lacked any of the installed apps, it complained about failing to install the management profile! ARGH!!!

I need to circle back around a little, because an on-going issue with management profiles is Apple's DEP (Device Enrolment Program). The management profiles installed to the iPads can be removed by any user, without a password. The only way around this is to enroll in DEP, and only devices purchased within a given timeframe can be added to DEP (forget about the collection of iPad 2's we purchased several years ago). How does this make any sense?! How is it not possible for Apple to simply allow management profiles to be password protected?! This is absolutely insane!

I can only hope that I have missed some critical step somewhere. I have Googled and pretty much found nothing but complaints about being "forced into Configurator 2". I suspect the problems I have described are not currently "solvable".

It comes as no surprise to me that Chromebooks are gaining in popularity for education. iPad deployment, especially for shared devices, is a nightmare.

The New Apple

I can't help but wonder, has Apple jumped the shark?

Ever since the release of OS X Yosemite, I have heard complaints about the pinwheel constantly appearing and unresponsive UI. My own experiences on a work machine updated to El Capitan seem to confirm what others are reporting. Using this Mac feels a lot like the old Windows hourglass days.

More recently I updated my wife's iPhone to iOS 9. I did hold off until 9.0.2, but it just didn't seem to matter; iOS 9 is a beta OS that never should have been released. My wife actually said she is ready to throw her phone in the garbage! To put this into perspective, she has had a couple iPod Touches (2nd and 5th gen), and absolutely loves her MacBook Air (still rocking Mavericks). She is a typical Apple fan, and she's just about had enough.

I know it is an oft-used phrase, but I really do doubt the iOS 9 scenario would have "happened under Steve". To be clear, I do not admire Steve Jobs; he was a complete jerk who publicly berated employees. I would never want my child to "grow up to be the next Steve Jobs", but it is exactly because of who he was that, under his reign, it is unlikely we would be living with the glitchy OSes of the New Apple.