topic Re: Managing old iphones in the Google Admin Console in Peer-Peer Topics

Managing old iphones in the Google Admin Console

marcusdstein — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 15:15:44 GMT

I hate to see old tech go to waste- so here's what I'm doing-

I've collected about 50 iphone 12s that aren't in use, enrolled them into Apple School Manager and then synced the Google Admin Console as my management system.

This support article has gotten me most of the way. I got the Google Admin Console syncing as a server in Apple School Manager. I can even find the iOS devices in "Company Owned Equipment" in the Google Admin Console, but here's where I'm stuck-

I've added the details for the VPP from Apple School Manager and the apps are showing in the Google Admin Console, but I don't know how to push the apps to the devices.
I've created a User and Apple ID for the iPhones so that the reside in their own OU, but I don't know how to "assign" the iphone to that user so that the OU settings apply to the phone

I'm sure I'll get stuck again, but I'm interested in hearing from anyone who's experimented with managing old iOS devices in the Google Admin Console.

Eager to make use of "old tech"

Re: Managing old iphones in the Google Admin Console

Michael_Roop — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:00:36 GMT

I did some similar work on some Apple device years ago and one thing I found was that the Apple device needed Erase and Reset completely before the devices would start responding. I made it a practice of making the changes I wanted in the systems (Google and ASM) and then Resetting the devices fully about 5 hours later (in which the changes would start appearing).

Just to confirm, are the Apple devices also showing in your ASM or have you added them to the system through a Mac device?

Re: Managing old iphones in the Google Admin Console

Olger — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 21:53:16 GMT

I tried setting up iOS devices a few years ago, and given up for the time being. I just couldn't work it out and blamed Apple/iOS, being the weird devices they are. 😛 In the past months I've set up a bunch of Android phones as managed devices and learned a lot. I'm about to revisit iOS devices.

With Android devices everything is tied to the user. Once a managed user logs into the device it shows as either user owned or company owned in GW. If you have an existing (installed and working) Android device and add the user via settings, it becomes a BYOD device and you end up with a personal and work profile. Interesting side note: you can push apps on BYOD devices as well, but if you try to install a launcher (like I did) you can't make that the default launcher. Logic suggests this is because the work profile can be paused (temporarily disabled), which makes the work apps unavailable, which wouldn't be a good thing for launchers. So any installed apps on a work profile cannot be made default apps.

However, if you factory reset an Android device and add the user while going through the initial set up, it becomes a company owned device, and there are no personal/work profiles anymore, just the company (work) profile with whatever settings were defined in GW. In this case pushed apps can be made default apps, including launchers.

I suspect this will work the same for iOS (will be finding out soonish), when you factory reset the device and during the set up log in with the user account, it will become a company device and you can contorl it like with Android devices. Well, within Apple's limits of course. 😠

Re: Managing old iphones in the Google Admin Console

Kim_Nilsson — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 11:22:40 GMT

AFAIK, Mosyle MDM is free for Education if you only use it for one device type (like iPhones/iPads).

Re: Managing old iphones in the Google Admin Console

marcusdstein — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 20:57:23 GMT

The devices are all in ASM and showing in the Google Admin Console

Re: Managing old iphones in the Google Admin Console

Michael_Roop — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 12:49:00 GMT

Are the Apple devices showing some management certificates or profiles from Google? (You can locate these in the Settings-> VPN & Device Management)

Are the devices set to be Supervised?

Inside Google is there a Sync button for the devices to pull over? I know many MDMs where you have to either manually sync or set the sync to automatically run.

IMHO I would work towards getting the free version of Mosyle set up for the devices, set to manage without needing Apple IDs. With Apple, tying apps to user accounts was always a recipe for disaster. Add to that the fact that Google MDM has a small subset of restrictions and profiles that you can enact, whereas free Mosyle (and many other systems) will give you more robust abilities with the devices.