Many schools are looking at using Android tablets in classrooms. Some have classroom sets of 35-40 tablets. As a means to manage apps, having them tied to a single Google Play account would be ideal. Is there a maximum number of devices allowed?
This setup would also be cost effective, if the school uses any pay apps, as the app is linked to the account, not the devices. Does anybody have any experience or knowledge beyond, "I have 5 devices in my family all synced and it works."?
This applies to Music, but seems it also might generally apply to all Google accounts regardless if they use Google Music or not.
Any user can associate up to 10 devices to his or her account.
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We limit the number of times you can swap out new devices at the request of some of our music partners in an effort to limit abuse.
But you may also run into an issue if there is a credit card associated with the account used to purchase apps - any student could purchase whatever from the market.
If you're serious about doing this, and you didn't make it very clear what you're actually wanting, you might want to consider contact a device manufacturer and setup a contract to create tablets specifically for your needs.
If you have more than 100 devices per account it seems like you will get logged out on previously signed in devices.
In the Google Dashboard I also can only see 100 devices at a time.
As for the app management, another approach would be using Aptitude. Unfortunately, the app is gone from the playstore, but the concept should still work: Set up a central repository on a server, maintain all apps there, and have the clients on the devices configured to (solely) using this. As for paid apps, it would surely be possible to find an agreement with the devs.
For details, also see the Aptoide article on Wikipedia:
Aptoide is an Android (operating system) distributed Marketplace for Android applications driven by the community. In Aptoide, there is not a unique and centralized store but each user manages their own store.
Further links:
There were also scripts somewhere to maintain your own repo (on your own server), I just cannot find them currently.
Currently have upwards of 100 devices associated with a single Google account for test purposes. Came here for this same reason.
No issues with this number.
Edit: Just noted the date tag....
ElefantPhace provided an answer for Music.
Here's for Books:
You can access your books on different devices, including compatible Android devices, iPads, iPhones and iPod touches, or on the web on your computer. No matter where you read your books, when you're connected to a network (via Wi-Fi or a data connection on your device) we'll automatically keep track of your reading place, so you can pick up right where you were last reading the next time you open your ebooks
Note: In rare occasions when a user tries to access books on a number of devices at the same time, our system may temporarily block them from opening new reading sessions. This can happen when too many readers are open on different machines or browsers. If your other reading sessions are closed or inactive, you will be able to read in this browser after a short delay. If you believe this is an error please contact our support team.
The limit is 10 devices, it is a known issue: https://support.google.com/googleplay/known-issues/1335215?hl=en
Sharing. You may not use Products as part of any service for sharing, lending or multi-person use, or for the purpose of any other institution, except as specifically permitted and only in the exact manner specified and enabled by Google (for example, through “Social Recommendations”).