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mattdermody
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Joined 2 years ago
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Re: Mobile Device Financing Solutions
My perspective on this is that AMAPI based EMMs, especially the smaller players like Springdel that are not well established are often doing just the bare minimum when it comes to Android Enterprise Management. It is relatively easy for a new upstart EMM provider to let Google do all of the heavy lifting of device management through AMAPI while they effectively just build a front end user experience. Custom DPC based EMMs are doing considerably more work when it comes to developoing and maintaining that infrastructure and you will find they are typically significantly more feature rich when it comes to Android management. Google is generally pushing more and more people to AMAPI over time but I still personally would only ever consider Custom DPC based EMMs for Android device management if you're dealing with enterprise class / line of business devices. If you're dealing with more basic management scenarios like BYOD then it may be okay for you. Along those lines I personally don't even necessarily trust the Android Enterprise Recommended badging. I see this badge as the lowest common denominator bare minimum that you should at least be looking for when it comes to EMM selection, but that badge alone does not gaurantee that the EMM will be feature rich enough for your management use cases. That. badge means the EMM has met the minimum requirements set for by Google and they haven't necessarily gone above the call of duty beyond that. The current landscape of AMAPI vs Custom DPC makes it a more straightforward decision for me. If its an AMAPI based EMM then I'm going to assume they're more likely to be doing the bare minimum and just aligning with Google's posted requirements and recommendations. If they are Custom DPC based that signals to me they are going well beyond the bare minimums and are likely offering a much more feature rich and capable EMM for Android Enterprise devices. These are my opinions based on years of experience working with different EMM solutions specifically focused on the Fully Managed device management use case. Edit: And it's worth mentioning that Springdel doesn't even have AER EMM badging so they aren't even meeting what I would consider to be the bare minimum requirements set forth by Google.Re: In-house app is not being distributed to a specific device
That's very unusual for it to be missing completely from the list. Are you able to relax your app install restrictions to allow for ALL Zebra devices or are you required to input a specific model? Maybe you could control restricting access to that app in different ways since it is an internal app afterall. Rather than relying on Google Play enforced restrictions couldnt you set it to being allowed on all devices and then restrict which device groups you assign the internal app policy to?FYI - Chrome is dropping support for A8 and A9 in August 2025
138 will be the last version of Chrome that will support both A8 and A9 according to this recent announcement. https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/352616098/sunsetting-chrome-support-for-android-8-0-oreo-and-android-9-0-pie?hl=en There are very small populations of these devices left in the wild but I personally still support quite a number of them. The entire Atlas family from Zebra including the TC51, MC3300, and VC80x devices all max out on A8 with no higher upgrades available. This likely will lead to forced upgrades to those devices, especially given how many modern apps are hybrid web apps dependent on the WebView and/or Chrome (Chrome is the System WebView implementation on A8).Re: In-house app is not being distributed to a specific device
Same can be said about hardware limitations. If the app for example needs camera access and you have an MC3300ax without a camera (possible with Zebra devices and less premium part numbers) then that could be another reason for it not being eligible for the app.Re: In-house app is not being distributed to a specific device
First off, I'm sorry you're having to use Intune to manage line-of-business devices like those commonly offered by Zebra. It is certainly not an optimal tool for the job and I'm sure this is the first of many limitations that you'll run into that will have you frustrated at the Zebra devices when in reality you should be frustrated at Intune for not providing you a more complete set of management tools. Rant aside, it appears you have the app restricted to specific device models and the MC3300ax is not an available model in the list. Have you searched for "MC3300ax" more specifically? MC93, MC94, MC33, and MC33ax are not Zebra device models, those are shorthand names that you appear to have come up with yourself. The actual models are MC9300, MC9400, MC3300x, MC3300ax. Alternatively could you have it restricted to all Zebra devices instead of making it model specific? If that doesn't work it does sound like you may need to work with someone at Google to get the model number added to the list of available models. That should tell you something however about how few people are using these mechanisms for app installation on Zebra Android devices if a device released in 2024 isn't even in the list yet.Re: [Product Update]: Android Enterprise Feature Drop
Desktop Windowing and improved keyboard shortcut handling are welcome upgrades for the environments that I support. Zebra WorkstationConnect and Samsung DeX have however lead the way for a while in desktop enablement so it will be interesting to see how it compares. I am curious how the enterprise manufacturers are going to respond also the multi major release schedule that Android has shifted to. Most of my end customers I support want LESS major upgrades and not more as many are exhausted by the annual cadence as it is.Re: Does anyone allow multiple users on their Androids?
Shared devices might be migrating more to individual /named devices in the healthcare setting where a relatively more affordable device like a Zebra HC20 can be issued and also where the data on the devices is arguably a lot more sensitive. Other usecases like education, logistics, retail etc still very much rely on shared devices. Multi-shift 24 operations in warehouses for example very much expect to have the same devices used across multiple users and multiple shifts. Bluefletch handles the shared device use case on Android fairly well. They have a custom launcher that the end user logs into and then can support various forms of SSO into the individual apps from there. They have permissions that can control what apps an end user has access to depending on their user profile and have scripting to clear out existing sessions across multiple apps in order to provide seamless handoff to the next end user. SOTI has something similar with their integration of Microsoft Shared Device mode but I believe it is limited to Entra ID accounts still.Re: "This item isn't available in your country" showing on isolated apps on isolated devices.
1. The app is available in the US market 2. The devices are TC53 which are WiFi only so I am unable to swap from WiFi to a cellular network. 3. A proxy is not being used. I've verified the external IP of the device is also showing a US location. 4. No VPN is being used. I will see about attempting a test from another wireless network. These are distributed devices in retail stores so there may not be another network available, but I will check."This item isn't available in your country" showing on isolated apps on isolated devices.
All of a sudden I'm having issues installing apps through Managed Play on isolated devices. When navigating to the app directly I can see "This item isn't available in your country." The devices are in the US. Location services confirms this, the external device IP is also US based as well. I have cleared cache and app storage of Google Play and Google Play Services. I have upgraded Google Play Services. The devices are fully managed with manage service accounts. I have reset the account assigned to the device. I have tried to set the Country manually in Google Play setting but am unable to do so. It does not show a current country. I also see an option for "Switch to the United States Play Store" but tapping on it doesn't do anything. Any ideas or suggestions here?Re: Caching Google Play Applications for Deployment via EMM
Yes, absolutely! This architecture works for distributing files and apps from EMMs like WS1 and SOTI that can deliver them to Android devices directly. I am however not aware of such a model available to deliver apps in a distributed manner when passing them through Managed Google Play. This is yet another reason why those specific EMMs are so good for the mission critical / line of business Android Enterprise use case and why purely AMAPI aligned EMMs fall short.Re: High Priority mode takes 10 hours to update apps on devices
Yes, this is another example of how attempts at proper version control in Android Enterprise have fallen flat. My end customers that I manage expect to be able to install apps on their devices in specific controlled upgrade windows. Managed Google Play does not provide that level of control that is needed, even with this High Priority mode, so I prefer to use direct APK installs with Custom DPC based EMMs, and will continue to do so until proper version control is added to Managed Google Play.Re: New to the community? Introduce yourself here...
This should put you on the right track. https://community.omnissa.com/forums/topic/69426-zebra-persist-intelligent-hub-beyond-enterprise-reset-os-upgrade-from-android-10-11-to-android-13-14-on-devices-with-sdm660-chipset/ A couple of key points to understand here: An Enterprise Reset is unavoidable when upgrading a Zebra Helios /SD660 family device from A11 to A13 or A14, you can however take measures to make things like the WiFi network settings and custom DPC MDM agent (e.g. SOTI, WS1) persist through the upgrade so that the devices automatically reconnect to the MDM. The easiest process I have found so far is using SOTI MobiControl. WS1 is second to that in terms of complexity. I wouldn't even consider it with something less capable like Intune. There was a specific range of A13 Zebra BSP builds that broke the persistence. This was fixed in 13-38 and 14-26. You can upgrade directly from A11 to either version now. The A13 upgrade issues on Zebra devices only apply to the Helios / SD660 family. The newer generation families like Athena and Nemesis do not have these issues and can be upgraded directly to A13 since they already have File Based Encryption out of the box.Re: Caching Google Play Applications for Deployment via EMM
Nothing officially available through Google Play app distribution that I am aware of but there are concepts like Xtreme Hub for SOTI that offer a local relay server distribution method. This is incredibly helpful for the distribution of large files like firmware updates or large APKs to a location with a limited ISP connection that we often see in warehouses and retail stores. We use these relay servers to push the large file once through the ISP connection onto a local server in the environment from the primary cloud EMM. Devices then connect to that relay server on their local network to pull the files more directly without consuming ISP bandwidth.Re: Watchparty! Join us on May 13th for The Android Show: I/O edition!
Exciting from a consumer perspective, less so from an Enterprise perspective. I watch these sort of events to get a preview of all of the new consumer features like personalization and Gemini screen scraping I'll have to learn how to disable for Enterprise customers. Still helpful to understand the upgrades coming down for that context.
