Hi. I have been slamming my head against the wall for the past few weeks trying to figure out why certain apps would not go through our VPP account on our new iOS 11 iPads. I finally found the answer yesterday.
We purchased the apps through our VPP account. We see the apps in our JSS. We can see the apps are correctly scoped to our new iPads. But for some reason, some apps will not install while others can.
I learned that two kinds of iOS apps exist:
- 32-bit apps
- 64-bit apps
iOS 10 and below can support both 32-bit apps and 64-bit apps. However, iOS 11 will only support 64-bit apps, and not 32-bit apps.
But how do you know if the app is 32-bit?
Find an app that you're having trouble installing on your iOS 11 iPad. Here is our self service. Any app with a checkmark was able to go through and was installed properly. Any app that has the [INSTALL] button next to it means the app was scoped out correctly to the iPad, but it has not been installed.

Let's check out the "Amazing Space Journey" app on the left column. The app has the [INSTALL] button, meaning it was scoped to the iPad correctly, but did not install for some reason.
Inside the "Amazing Space Journey" app at the very bottom is the "App URL".

This is the app store link for "Amazing Space Journey". Let's copy this link, and open it up in a browser to check the app out.
On the app store preview page for "Amazing Space Journey", there is a "Version History" section that you can look at. Let's take a look at it.

The last time this app was updated was on December 14, 2012. A loooong time ago. iOS 11 was released on September 19, 2017. This most likely means that the developer of the app has never updated their app from 32-bit up to 64-bit.
This probably explains why we can't install "Amazing Space Journey" on our new iOS 11 iPads. The app is probably still 32-bit, and 32-bit apps can't work on iOS 11.
SUMMARY
- There are 32-bit apps, and 64-bit apps
- Only 64-bit apps work on iOS 11
- 32-bit apps will appear in self service, but not install on iOS 11
- Apps that haven't been updated in years are probably still 32-bit
- Apps that have been updated recently are most likely 64-bit
I hope I wasn't alone in this, and I hope this helps some other poor soul!

