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Showing posts with label iOS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iOS. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

iOS: Downloading SD Video Direct To iPads (When Purchased HD)

This has been frustrating me for a while so I thought I'd write a blog about it. Basically I have access to a couple of 16GB iPads which are ideal for the kids to play with BUT the movies/ TV shows I want them to watch I own in HD and when you look at the size of the HD files - such as Disney's Brave below - 3.42GB in HD vs 1.46GB in SD then the storage on the device is being eaten away pretty quickly;
Disney's Brave; HD vs SD File Sizes
Now back in the days when you used cables to connect iOS to iTunes you could just download the SD version into iTunes and sync it across. Technically you still could with iTunes Wi-Fi Sync but the problem is if you're going to use iCloud (which is just fantastically useful in every other way) to manage your content there doesn't seem to be an obvious or easy way to switch between versions.

As you'll know to download your pre-purchased content you need to go into the iTunes Application your iPad and then touch on the "Purchased" button (bottom right);

iCloud Purchases Tab (iTunes on an iPad)
and then touch the film you're interested in;
Downloading an iCloud Purchase Direct to an iPad
and finally touch the "Cloud" icon to start the download.

Occasionally you'll notice that instead of the "Cloud" icon you'll just get a "Watch" button. I'm not entirely sure what this button is for - it doesn't seem to actually start the movie playing (at least it doesn't on my iPad 2 or my iPhone 5!).

The problem is you can't choose between SD and HD when you trigger the download.

There doesn't seem to be any quick and easy way around this *however* there is a long and complicated way - go back into the iTunes application and search for the video you are interested in and go to the page. Taking "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" (as shown above) when you open the films page in the store you get the same iCloud download icon but this time you get the HD/SD option for your iCloud download;
iTunes Store Movie Details - With HD/SD iCloud Option
Hopefully Apple will do something about this - it's not exactly the best user interface in the world and as films get bigger and bigger it becomes more and more important to shrink the filesize prior to starting the downloads.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

MobileIron: Resolving "MobileIron iOS App Multi-Tasking Is Disabled" error

This one took a few minutes to resolve so in order to save anyone else some time here is what you'll see in the MobileIron control panel;

MobileIron: Users and Devices
The warning is;

MobileIron iOS App Multitasking is Disabled
Verify Location Services is enabled on the device for the MobileIron app by going to Settings | Location Services, then launch the MobileIron app once.

If you have email notifications for your users turned on they'll have received a similar email message in their local language.

Unfortunately if you've been an iOS for quite some time the title of the message will confuse you - you can't switch of Multitasking anymore. As is probably the case for lots of people (like me) you'll reach for Google and not read the rest of the message which explains the problem and lets you know how to fix it.

The issue is, basically, that the MobileIron applicaiton cannot access Location Services. This will either be because Location Services has been compeltely turned off on the device or that the MobileIron application has been specifically denied access to it.

The first step to resolving it is to open the "Settings" application;

iOS7: Settings Application
 Touch the "Privacy" item on the left (at the bottom of the "General" group;

iOS7: Settings > Privacy
In this page you'll have details of how much information you are sharing. Touch "Location Services" at the top;
iOS7: Settings > Privacy > Location Services
As you can see from this screen shot MobileIron is explicitly denied access to Location Services. If you switch this back to green then the warning will go away.






Tuesday, April 30, 2013

EasyPush: Creating Member Groups To Control iPad Experience

This blog covers how to setup and configure Member Groups to control the distribution of content within the EasyPush iPad Application.

The first step is to login to the administrative console (back-end);

EasyPush: Umbraco Admin Interface
Click on the "Members" section in the bottom left;

EasyPush: Members Section
The bit we're interested in is the node titled "Member Groups". If you click the triangle you'll see the groups already configured on the server. To create a new group right-click the node and select "Create";

EasyPush: Creating a New Members Group
Enter the name you're after and then click "Create".

The new group you've created will then be listed at the bottom of the nodes in the navigator and automatically selected (so you'll see the properties);

EasyPush: Member Group Properties
You'll notice that the only property is the name.

Now you need to configure Members to be part of your new group.

Click the triangle (expand) the "Members" node in the Navigation View and then search for a user to add to your new group;

EasyPush: Members

Click on the "Properties" tab (1);

EasyPush: Member Properties (With Group Membership)
Select the group you want to add to the member in the list on the left (2) and then click the double-arrow to move it across (3).

Click "Save" to save the changes.

You now need to look at the others documents I've produced as part of my work with Easypush (see Easypush Documentation Summary) and create some content that is can only be deployed to the new group you've created to test it.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

MobileIron: Removing a Deployed Application From iPads

This is a simple quick guide to how to remove an application you are already deploying via MobileIron. This is useful if you need to remove an application urgently but don't want to delete it or if, like us, you are using Active Directory groups to control deploying the application but can't wait until AD replication has caught up to remove the application.

Log into MobileIron click on the APPS & CONFIGS tab, then “App Distribution”, select “iOS” in the Platform drop down, and then click on the “Add Name” column so that the applications are sorted in name order;
MobileIron: Deployed Applications
This gives you the list of all the application (both in-house and recommended applications from the iTunes store). It's probably easier to do a search for the application you're looking to remove. I'm going to remove the "Accellion" application you can see above. It's better to search for the exact application you want to remove as the last thing you want to do is just remove the *current* version of an application and roll all your users back to the previous version.

When you've done the search you will be presented with all the versions of the application you have in the system;

MobileIron: App Distribution - Multiple Versions
Select all the applications (click on the tick on the left), and then in the "Actions" menu select "Remove from Label";

MobileIron: Remove From Label dialog
The top item is labelled as "Partial" because the label is applied to one of the applications I've selected but not the other.

Select all the labels (check box at the top left) and then click "Remove".

You should now start to see the "Devices Installed" count decreasing as each device checks in and MobileIron does its stuff.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

EasyPush Documentation Summary

The purpose of this post is to bring all the EasyPush blog posts I've written up to this point together into a single place so they're of the most use to people.

Here's an overview of the documentation;
EasyPush Documentation Summary
The blog posts are;
Just click on the links to be taken straight to the blog posts.

UPDATE: 30-APR-2013 Creating Members Groups To Control iPad Experience

EasyPush: Quick Start Guide

Getting Started

To start the application locate EasyPush on your iPad;
iOS: EasyPush Icon
And touch the icon.

When you start the application you will see;
EasyPush: Example Homepage
The interactive areas on the screen are the buttons on the left (each grey box with a ">" symbol on the right), the Home button at the top right and the buttons to the left of it, and (on some screens only) the infobox at the bottom right.

Managing Updates

After you’ve logged in at the top-right you may see an “UPDATE” button;

EasyPush: Update Button
If you do an update is available, pushing this button will download and install the update.

Getting Around In EasyPush

Touch the links to the right to be taken to a new page;

EasyPush: New Page Links
Use the links at the top right to move back a page (or direct to home);

EasyPush: Backwards Links
When you’re viewing a document page, touch the document to view it;

EasyPush: Document

EasyPush: Creating A User

NOTE: Just a quick reminder of EasyPush terminology! “Users” are able to administer the system via the back end and make changes. If you are just looking to add someone to the iPad application then you need the EasyPush guide which relates to creating a “Member” (see here).

You might also want to consider how you've structured the data within your EasyPush application as some of the steps below might not be relevant to your organisation. For us we have distinct groups of iPad users spread across Europe. With each group of iPads (i.e. France, Germany, etc) we have a group of local administrators who manage the data. It's important that the administrators in one area can only edit the data for their area but that we, as the IT Service Provider, can see everything.

Creating A Single-Site Administrator

From the “Sections” part of the screen (bottom right);

EasyPush: Sections
Click on “Users”. The navigation view on the left of the screen will change to display;

EasyPush: User Section Options
Right-click the (Second) “Users” item in the navigation view and choose “Create”;

EasyPush: Creating A New User
Enter the users full name (i.e. John Smith) and click “Create”;

EasyPush: "John Smith" - New User
The navigation view on the left has now expanded and highlighted the new users with the properties for that user shown on the right. In the “Sections” part of the properties (at the bottom) there are five check boxes.
Check “Content” and “Media” checkboxes for someone who will be expected to publish changes to the site but not create users or setup members, for a local administrator (IT user) check the boxes for the sections you wish the user to be able to access. Unless you're creating an IT Super-user they shouldn't have everything, usually Content, Media, and Members is enough!;

EasyPush: User Properties
Click on "Choose" next to both the "Start Node in Content" and "Start Node in Media Library" if you want to restrict the newly created user to a specific area within each. Typically we set it so that administrators in each area can see everything in that area but nothing outside. This leads to a slight bit of duplication (each area having it's own PDF Thumbnail image for example) but generally it's a lot easier to manage than allowing cross-area sharing and relying on people to to mess up things for someone else!

When you're done click "Save".

At the bottom right of the screen a speech bubble will appear confirming the details have been saved;

EasyPush: Confirmation Popup
Now right click the “User Permissions” item in the navigation menu and choose “reload nodes” (this refreshes the users – if you don’t do this the user you just added might not appear).
Expand the “User Permissions” node and select the user you wish to modify permissions for.

In the right-hand side part of the web page you’ll see the content available;

EasyPush: User Permissions
Click the triangle next to the item below content in the treeview to expand the list and then select every item that appears directly underneath. When you select an item you’ll see its permissions;
EasyPush: User Permissions
Uncheck ALL the permissions checkboxes and check the “Replace child node permissions”. This revokes all the new users permissions (they will, by default, have got permission to see and do everything).
Click “Save” and a dialog will appear;
EasyPush: Permission Change Dialog
Click “OK”. A speech bubble will appear at the bottom right (after a few seconds) to let you know permissions have been successfully saved;

EasyPush: Permissions Saved Popup
Now un-check all the checkboxes and select just the ones you want the user to be able to administer and configure the permissions are follows;

EasyPush: User Permissions
Basically give them everything except “Send to Publish”, “Translate”, “Create child definition”, and “Import Data”. These are disabled for everyone (including the Global Admin user) as we don’t need/ use them.
Click “Save”, “OK” the dialog and the “Permissions saved” speech bubble will appear again.

This is how we configure users in EasyPush, I'm sure you'll have a different process but overall once you've done it a few times it's pretty simple.

EasyPush: Installing EasyPush on an iPad (via MobileIron)

The EasyPush application is available via the “Apps@Work” icon on standard company iPads;

MobileIron: Apps@Work
When you start Apps@Work it will connect to your company App Store and show you all the applications you are eligible for;

MobileIron: Apps@Work Application List
To install EasyPush touch the “EasyPush” line and you’ll be taken to the application details screen;

MobileIron: EasyPush Application Details
On this screen touch the “Request” button, after a few seconds a popup will appear;

iOS: App Installation Dialog
Push “Install”. You’ll then be taken back to your home screen while the EasyPush application downloads and installs (this should only take a few seconds);

EasyPush: Application Installation
After the application has downloaded run it. A security dialog will appear;

iOS: "Are You Sure?" Dialog
Push “Continue” and the application will start;

EasyPush: Start Screen showing "Update" Button
After a few seconds an “Update” button will appear (highlighted above). Push it. EasyPush will now start downloading configuration files from the server;

EasyPush: Download Updates
Once the download is complete it will display whatever the users have permission to see.

Troubleshooting Installation/ First Run

I can’t find Apps@Work?

First of all swipe to the far-left and use the search to make sure it’s not hidden in one of the users folders. If you still can’t find it then check to see if MobileIron is installed (again use search). If it’s not then you need to install it, if it is open it and check to see it’s connecting correctly with the server. When you open MobileIron you should see something like;

MobileIron: Connection and Device Status
 If you do then go into Settings, and then select “Re-Enroll Device” (push “Re-Enroll” when prompted).

“No Certificate Installed” – error

You should only get this error when you are attempting to open the Apps@Work icon on a new iPad that has only just had MobileIron installed on it. The issue is caused by MobileIron not having installed all the profiles yet – if you open MobileIron, go into Settings, and then select “Re-Enroll Device” (push “Re-Enroll” when prompted).

Pushing “REQUEST” in Apps@Work Doesn’t Install the Application

There is no fix for this problem (that I have found) only doing a factory reset on the device. Go into Settings > General > Reset (at the bottom) > Erase All Content and Settings.

You have to pick “Erase All Content and Settings” just erasing settings does not work. You need to start again with the iPad and re-install MobileIron to fix the issue.

Pushing “UPDATE” in EasyPush just results in the same blank screen

The users settings in EasyPush are incorrect – in essence it’s showing them nothing because they don’t have permissions to see anything.

They need to be added as a Member and granted the appropriate permissions.

Monday, February 4, 2013

EasyPush: Finding A User & Resetting Their Password

Click on the “Users” section (bottom left);
EasyPush: Users Section
This will change the Navigation View to display the user information, expand the “users” item until you can see a list of users and select the user you wish to reset the password for.

Once you’ve picked a user the Main Window will display the users details;

EasyPush: User Details
Click on “Change password” (highlighted above).
EasyPush: Change Password Details
Enter a New Password (twice) and then click on the “Save” icon at the top of the Main Window;
EasyPush: Save Button
The user will now be able to log in using the new password.

EasyPush: Setting Up Members

Log into the EasyPush and click on the “members” section (at the bottom left);
EasyPush: Available Sections
In the “Members” section you have four nodes to the tree view; Members, Member Groups, Member Types, and Export members;
EasyPush: Members Navigation View
Right-click “Members” and a drop-down menu will appear with two options; Create and reload nodes (if only reload nodes is visible then you clicked Members at the very top of the tree view, click the Members directly above Member Groups).
EasyPush: Create Option (For New Member)
Click on “Create”.
EasyPush: Create Member Dialog
One thing it's very difficult to get right (and consistent!) on these systems is naming convention. For example our naming convention is;
•    Name = <Last name> <First name> (i.e. Smith John)
•    Choose Member Type = Default (the only option)
•    Login Name = <first character of First Name><Last name>[<unique id – if necessary>] (i.e. jsmith, or jsmith1, jsmith2, etc)
•    E-mail = The users email
•    Password = Leave as auto-generated

Press [RETURN] to create the entry.

In order to see the entry you’ve just created (and complete the process of setting it up) right-click “Members” and choose “Reload nodes” then expand the “Members” node and the node for the first letter of the Name of the user you’ve just created.

For example, after creating the member “Smith John” the new member will be located under “Members > Members > j”.

Select the new member and the page on the right will show the details;
EasyPush: Member Details
There are three tabs; iPad, Push Notification, and Properties. iPad will be selected by default.

To find the UDID you need either original orders/ packaging, or to connect the device to iTunes (as shown in “iOS- Finding Your UDID, Mobile Data Number, IMEI, or ICCID in iTunes 11” blog).

Once you’ve got the number enter it here, set the Last Update Time to today and click the “Save” icon.

You can ignore the “Push Notification” tab and click on the “Properties” tab;
EasyPush: Member Properties
At the bottom of this tab is the groups this member is in, select the appropriate groups (using the >> and << buttons) and then click the “Save” icon.