Bradley C

Making The Grade is a weekly series from Bradley Chambers covering Apple in education. Bradley has been managing Apple devices in an education environment since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple’s products work at scale, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for students.

If you are around the K–12 technology scene at all, there is no doubt one term that you’ve heard of: BYOD. It stands for bring your own device. It means that the school’s technology program allows students to bring a device to school, put it on the school’s Wi-Fi network, and use it to do their classwork. On the surface, this sounds like a win-win for everyone. School’s get out of the device ownership and management business, and students get to bring whatever device they want to school. I’ve long disagreed with this strategy, and I want to explain why.

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I wrote about the release of Parallels Desktop 14 a few weeks ago. I’ve been spending some time with it since then, so I wanted to take the time to write about it in more detail. One thing to note (and I think it makes gives my review an interesting perspective) is that I’ve used VMware Fusion (and supported it at my day job) since 2009. I had certainly heard of Parallels Desktop before, but I jumped on the Fusion train and kept on upgrading over the years. When I read about Parallels Desktop 14, I decided that it was time to try something new. 
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Making The Grade is a weekly series from Bradley Chambers covering Apple in education. Bradley has been managing Apple devices in an education environment since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple’s products work at scale, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for students.

I’ve written a lot about Apple TV over the years. I own five of them, and I use them every day. On the flip side, I can admit that is overpriced for what it does. I wrote this previously:

The problem, I believe, is that it’s become similar to HomePod: a device that’s perfect for people who are all in on Apple. Some people will argue that all of Apple’s products are better when used alongside others. While that’s true, I’d also say that Apple’s best products are also best in class on their own (iPhone, iPad, Mac). I think the Apple TV is great, but it still has some major flaws

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Making The Grade is a weekly series from Bradley Chambers covering Apple in education. Bradley has been managing Apple devices in an education environment since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple’s products work at scale, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for students.

When the iPad was released was back in 2010, many people in the education industry saw it as a way to end the large backpacks that children have to carry back and forth to school. To sum it up, that mainly hasn’t happened. In 2018, there still aren’t great solutions for the majority of schools to deploy ebooks in mass to any device. This problem spans across the Apple Bookstore, Kindle store, and the Google Play store.

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If you love running macOS, but find yourself needing to virtualize other operating systems (Windows, Linux, or even multiple copies of macOS), you’ll want to take note of this article. Parallels Desktop 14 for Mac was released a few hours ago. Since version 1 in 2006, Parallels Desktop has been a staple on many Mac users’ computers. Year after year, it’s been back with upgrades to enhance the experience for those that need to live in a dual OS world. So what’s new in version 14? Well, a lot actually…
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I recently took a look at the various weather apps for iPhone (read the roundup here). Dark Sky was one of my absolute favorite apps, and today it gets even better. Despite already having the gold standard (in my opinion) of weather data, it now brings one of the best-looking apps to the table as well.
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If there is one thing I am obsessed with when it comes to technology, it’s my pictures. I keep them extremely organized and culled. I am equally as fanatical about getting them backed up. When it comes to music, movies, and TV shows – I can rebuy anything I lose due to hard drive failure. When it comes to pictures of my family, no amount of money can recreate them if I lose them. Over the years, my strategy has evolved as services have changed. I’ll do my best to keep this article up to date as things change in the future.

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Making The Grade is a weekly series from Bradley Chambers covering Apple in education. Bradley has been managing Apple devices in an education environment since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple’s products work at scale, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for students.

The discussion around macOS and iOS has been going on since the iPad was first released. People have asked: what’s the long-term future of these product lines? Do we expect Apple to maintain iPhone, Mac, and iPad forever? I’ve long considered my ideal computing future to be something a little radical.

https://twitter.com/bradleychambers/status/1025095118003621890

Since the iPhone came out, I’ve long since thought this should be the future of computing. This style of device would eliminate the discussion around tablets vs. laptops. Why can’t a device be both?

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Making The Grade is a weekly series from Bradley Chambers covering Apple in education. Bradley has been managing Apple devices in an education environment since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple’s products work at scale, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for students.

Much has been said about the transition from USB-A to USB-C. It certainly hasn’t been without its challenges in the short term. It’s been confusing for users (and expensive), but as someone who manages a fleet of Macs, I am excited. Yes, even if in the short term it has been expensive and confusing. In the long term, I am thrilled to be standardizing on one cable to rule them all. As tough as USB-C has been so far, IT departments have been dealing with “dongles” for years.

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Earlier this week, it was reported that Apple had been awarded a statewide contract in North Carolina. I spoke with Drew Elliot, Communications Director, for N.C. Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) as I wanted to learn more about why iPad, and more about how this deployment would work. Being in IT, I am always curious about the nuts and bolts of how these large deployments work.

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While there is a lot of great options for iOS mail clients, the built-in client is no slouch. Even after extended periods using third-party clients, I tend to always end up using the official app from Apple.

While it’s probably in need of an overhaul design-wise, it still holds up day to day use cases for me. I get a lot of email during the day, and I still feel like I can power through email on the iOS app just as well as I can anything else.

There are some features that I hope it gets in iOS 13 that would take it to the next level. Here they are:

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Making The Grade is a weekly series from Bradley Chambers covering Apple in education. Bradley has been managing Apple devices in an education environment since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple’s products work at scale, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for students.

When rolling out school-wide software applications, it’s very rare to get universal praise for something. Sometimes people don’t think it’s needed, they have trouble setting it up, or maybe just don’t want another system to deal with for their child. A year ago, we launched a new system that was praised by every single parent that talked to about it. It was called Kinderlime.

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Knowing up to date weather information is one of the reasons to own a smartphone. From knowing if your pool time is going to be cut short to deciding if you should wear shorts or pants, the weather dominates our life. Before smartphones, we had to rely on local news stations to gather the information. While that is not inherently bad, it’s not as convenient.
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Making The Grade is a weekly series from Bradley Chambers covering Apple in education. Bradley has been managing Apple devices in an education environment since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple’s products work at scale, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for students.

I am in full back to school mode in my school. One of my big tasks every summer is to get our 200+ iPads ready to go back into the classroom. This process includes cleaning them, installing recent iOS updates, replacing broken cases, and more. Once I get them ready, we start handing them back out to teachers to get into the hands of students.
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I woke up today with an email that one of my favorite apps is going away. Record Bird was a tool that would let you know when your favorite artists had new music coming out. It’s being shut down tomorrow.

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Making The Grade is a weekly series from Bradley Chambers covering Apple in education. Bradley has been managing Apple devices in an education environment since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple’s products work at scale, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for students.

Being in school IT, I get a lot of sales calls. It especially heats up in the spring when schools are making all the buying decisions for the following year. Most of them are sent straight to my voicemail, so it’s hard to wade through the junk from the great. A few weeks ago, I got an email from the folks at Bretford wanting to talk to me about Juice Mobile Power. I was immediately intrigued when I saw the first paragraph on the website:
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