apple configurator 2 does not save changes of home screen to iPad or iPhone

I just read carefully every post. I hadn't done that before.

If iOS 13 "Supervised" devices are working in this respect, then, since this app is specifically written for the management of multiple supervised iOS devices, they will work on this issue last. It is possible the way they will fix this bug is to gray out the "Modify - Home Screen Layout..." option for unsupervised devices. I wouldn't hold my breath for this issue to be fixed any time soon. If their customers that use app to manage many iOS devices were having an issue, I'm sure they would already have it fixed. I may try this on my iPod and iPad, if/when I do I will update the thread. Remember. they decided long ago to not support this feature for regular Mac/iPhone/iPad/iPod/Apple TV people, they did specifically remove this useful feature from "iTunes" and/or "The Finder" for a reason. I think just to make us upset, now they just want to rub salt in the wound.

Yes, I'm also planning on manually enrolling my iPhone into Supervision (involves full backup/"prepare for supervision"/restore) and I guess the home screen modification will then work! Won't get to do this until next week cause it's a several-hour job.

Since at least September 2019 support has known of this problem and they have been able to reproduce the problem, 8 Months at this point. If you call support, after a lengthy period of time, they will simply confirm that the software does not work and end the phone call. Feedback has been provided, support has known of this issue. If everyone of us, once a week, calls about this same issue...... never mind, they'll just block all of our phone numbers anyway..........

So it seems that as of iOS 13, the device has to be supervised by the macOS device to take Home Screen management instructions.

I wiped my device and found that in Supervision, the Home Screen modifications work perfectly.

But in order to keep my iPhone data, I want to be enter Supervision AND have my iPhone's data in place.

But (!), in order to switch Supervision on without starting afresh on your iOS device, you not only need to backup/restore your device, you need a temporary second physical device too!!! Yes, you read that correctly.

Why? Because Configurator will only enrol the device into supervision while it's having data restored if the backup comes from a different physical device than the one you're restoring to.

So the temporary device is used to basically clone your backup but with a different hardware identifier. Then, that backup can be restored to your actual phone with Supervision in play too.

https://help.mobilock.in/article/w830ax76x0-supervise-i-os-devices-without-data-loss-backup-supervise

I spent 6 hours on this so far. Quite an extraordinary situation.

So, next experiment will be to get a temporary iPhone (with enough space) to run this process on and will report back.

Thank you for sharing this info.

I feel we are like the “windows users” back in the win95-winXP era. In order to make it work properly you have to be a voluntary tester. That was the exact reason why I switched to Mac-iPhone environment the first place.

I have a MacPro (201*) using Catalina 10.15.5... I tried managing the apps on my iPhone X Max using Configurator 2 v 2.12.1. When I rearrange my apps on Configurator 2 and then apply them, the chnages are not reflected on the iPhone X Max.

It seems there are many posts on this same topic... but zero reposne from Apple that I could see?

Anyone seen a reply or fix?

Hi jas57,

There is a workaround, yes.

You need to enrol your iPhone in supervision with your computer. To do that without losing data, you'll need an additional temporary physical iOS device as part of it.

Then you follow these steps:–

https://help.mobilock.in/article/w830ax76x0-supervise-i-os-devices-without-data-loss-backup-supervise

Then you'll be enrolled in supervision and the iOS 13 device will take Home Screen modification instructions from Apple Configurator 2 without issue.

Just discovered that if you sign into the Public Beta for IOS 14 and then use Apple Configurator 2, the modify home screen changes DO save when applied. Been waiting for a while for this to work. And now it does!

Thank you for this information. I will hold off my congrats until the General Release.

Once they come out with the General Release of iOS 14, they'll probably disable it. This will confirm it is not a bug, just a feature Apple thinks is not appropriate for general users. Apple certainly, in the past, has disabled functions before when the General Release Version was delivered.

I’ve managed to get iOS 13 Home Screen modifications working on my phone following this procedure (involving a temporary device):-

https://help.mobilock.in/article/w830ax76x0-supervise-i-os-devices-without-data-loss-backup-supervise

I have the same problem as others here. I'm an individual user who just needs an easier way to organize his home screen. I don't need to supervise multiple iOS devices. I'm wondering whether the feature I want is only available to supervised devices. In that case, I suppose I'd have to prepare my phone from scratch, erasing whatever is on it. Does anyone know whether the ability to modify the home screen on an unsupervised device worked in the past in Apple Configurator?

x37y39 wrote:

I have the same problem as others here. I'm an individual user who just needs an easier way to organize his home screen. I don't need to supervise multiple iOS devices. I'm wondering whether the feature I want is only available to supervised devices. In that case, I suppose I'd have to prepare my phone from scratch, erasing whatever is on it. Does anyone know whether the ability to modify the home screen on an unsupervised device worked in the past in Apple Configurator?

Yes, it did used to work. Most of the people that care about this thread are just like you, regular iPhone/Mac users. If you read back a few posts, there is hope it will work when the new versions are released. It currently works if you have all the latest betas. This does not mean they won't disable the feature when the final is available in the fall. We're keeping our collective fingers crossed.

AS ONE WITH MILD TO MODERATE VISUAL IMPAIRMENT, THIS ABILITY TO REARRANGE, DELETE, ADD, GROUP APPS ON IOS USING ITUNES IN THE PAST AND / OR APPLE CONFIGURATOR WAS A TREMENDOUS HELP. NOW, ARRANGING APPS ETC ARE NOT SAVED ON IOS BY DOING THIS. THIS IS SOMETHING APPLE NEEDS TO RE-INSTATE FOR 'ACCESSIBILITY' AND VISUAL IMPAIRMENT. THANK YOU.

I would like to confirm that after installing a beta version of iOS 14 (beta 4) Apple Configurator 2.13 works fine and allows me to re-arrange my Home Screen Layout.

It failed before i upgraded to the beta version (both iOS and Apple Configurator).

That’s good. Although, with the other changes in iOS 14 like the App Library, I don’t think I need to use it. All is good.

It is nice for once to see a long thread like this end with a real resolution.