Apple App Management

Apple App Management is a suite of MDM that allows IT admins to seamlessly discover, purchase, distribute, and manage applications across an organization's Apple device fleet. This includes apps from the public App Store, custom apps built for your organization, and proprietary in-house enterprise apps, all deployed silently without requiring an Apple ID on the device.

Supported Operating System:

Apple App Management supports devices running the following operating systems:

• iOS
• iPadOS (including Shared iPad)
• TvOS
• MacOS

Adding standard App Store apps to the app catalog is not supported in MacOS and Enterprise Apps.

Types of Apps supported:

Platform	VPP Apps	Store Apps	Enterprise Apps
iOS
iPadOS
Shared iPad
tvOS
macOS

Network Requirements: Ports and Domains

To ensure successful communication with Apple's services for app management, the following domains and ports must be allow listed on your organization's firewall and proxies. 

Apple App Management

1. App Store: These are apps distributed through Apple's official App Store. They are available for anyone with an Apple ID to discover, download, and install.
   • Public Apps: The standard, most common type of app. Anyone can search for and download it from the public App Store catalog.
   • Custom apps are tailor-made applications developed by third-party developers specifically for your organization's needs. The key difference from enterprise apps is that custom apps are developed externally but are distributed exclusively through your Apple Business Manager (ABM) account, requiring an ABM account for management.
   • An unlisted iOS app is an application distributed through Apple's App Store but not discoverable via public search or browsing; instead, it is accessible only via a direct, permanent link shared by the developer. This distribution method is designed for apps intended for limited audiences, such as those used for specific events, corporate tools, etc., where broad public availability is unnecessary or undesirable.
2. Enterprise Apps: Enterprise apps are proprietary applications developed for internal use within an organization. These apps are not listed on the public App Store and are distributed directly by the organization. To know more about adding enterprise Apps in the App repository and installing them on devices without user intervention, refer to our Managing Apple Enterprise apps guide. To test and deploy Apple enterprise apps seamlessly using multi app version management, refer to our Managing Multiple Enterprise App Versions guide.

What's Next?

1. Content(VPP) Token: Integrate content tokens with MDM by uploading the token to link your Apple Business Manager account.
2. Manage iOS apps in MDM:  Sync and deploy applications from your Apple Business Manager portal and Manage iOS apps in MDM.
3. Configure App Policy:  Define installation, update, and removal rules for managed applications by Configuring app policy.
4. App Configuration:  Using XML to provide dynamic settings and variables for deployed apps by Creating/Modifing app configuration.
5. Enterprise iOS Apps:  Distribute in-house developed applications directly through your MDM by Provision iOS enterprise apps.