Disclaimer: This is not officially supported by Apple and may not work, but it worked for me.
Something that came up many, many times in the 2 years of our iPad deployment was “I’ve forgotten my passcode”. More often than not, the iPad was offline because it was inactive for too long. At this point, we were usually stuck because our iPads were set up as “personal model” and could only be fixed by our MDM via remote passcode removal command. The device would never receive this command since it was offline.
The only fix was to pray they had an iCloud backup, wipe the device, and restore from iCloud backup. That is, until today.
I had seen a USB Ethernet on iPad hack from 9to5Mac.com back in January. Only today, I realized I could use this to get an offline iPad online to receive the passcode removal command!
Needed:
Powered USB hub
Apple USB to ethernet adapter
Male to male USB cable
Apple 30-pin to USB camera connector
Ethernet connection
Device enrolled in your MDM solution
Simply plug in the USB Ethernet, send your passcode removal command, and it will work! Is this officially supported? No, but it’s pretty darn handy!
Derick Okihara
Mac and iOS systems integrator for a private K-12 school in Honolulu, Hawaii.
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