On Wednesday December 7th we launched AppsAnywhere. Powered by the all-new S2Hub, AppsAnywhere is the world's only app store designed exclusively for universities and colleges.

To outline the key features of AppsAnywhere, including the new user interface, application delivery methods, and Mac support, AppsAnywhere's technical director Ryan Heath explains everything you need to know...

Key Features of AppsAnywhere and S2Hub

The new S2Hub has been rebuilt from the ground-up, to make it easier for students to access any app, anywhere, anytime, and to make life simpler for the university's IT department, too.

User Interface

The user interface will look recognizable to users of the current AppsAnywhereHub, but it has in fact been completely redesigned. Every change we've made has been with the student's experience in mind!

Apps are now arranged in a beautiful and sleek layout, with the added option for the user to choose between three different looks: icon view, a larger grid view and list view. On top of this, we've added a series of filters and a quick-search, to make finding the right app faster than ever before.

S2Hub now loads using AJAX. That means apps are loaded into AppsAnywhere as soon as the data is available, so students can instantly see their apps.

Smart Prioritization

We understand that there's more than one way you might want to deliver an app. Maybe the user's on a particular OS, in a certain location, or restricted by a specific software license. But students want apps. They don't care how apps are delivered to them, as long as it works. And as long as it works well.

With this in mind, we've developed an entirely new feature called Smart Prioritization. Smart Prioritization allows university IT teams to set multiple delivery methods for one app (Cloudpaging, direct download, external link, locally-installed apps, etc.), but all delivered to the students using one 'Launch' button in AppsAnywhere.

S2Hub then does the difficult work. It assesses the device based on a variety of factors and contexts, then chooses the most appropriate way of getting the app to the user. And that's all done on-demand, and on a per-app basis.

Application Delivery Methods

Using S2Hub, AppsAnywhere now delivers apps to students using 8 different methods of application delivery.

  1. Cloudpaging (application virtualization)
  2. RemoteApp (to Mac users, using Cloudpaging packages)
  3. External website links
  4. Digital downloads
  5. Secure downloads
  6. Windows installs
  7. Locally-installed apps
  8. DMG and PKG deployment

No more token downloads!

Thanks to the new AppsAnywhere client, we've completely removed the need for token file downloads. That means the end user's experience is now even more awesome!

Mac support

We're thrilled to be able to announce that S2Hub now supports DMG and PKG deployment to Mac devices. Watch the above video for more news about S2Hub's Mac support.

2016 S2 User Day Video at Sheffield Hallam University

A short highlight of our recent AppsAnywhere Launch Event and S2 User Day, hosted at Sheffield Hallam University to over 100 of our customers.

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Improve student outcomes by delivering a better IT service, on and off campus. Make any app available on any device, enable BYOD and repurpose your dedicated lab spaces, all without the need for complex VDI environments.