Managed Apple ID's and the App Store with IOS11

[RLR]

We assigned some user licenses to students so they could download apps via the app store/purchased section of the app store. We've found one of our students has updated to IOS11 and is unable to download any apps from the app store even though licenses have been assigned. In IOS 10.3 they where able to download apps still. Tapping the account icon in the app store and then selecting the name attempts to load but then just closes without any information.

[IIL]

Hi RLR,

We are having the same problem - Looks like Managed Apple IDs which are defined as Students or Staff in Apple School Manager cannot access previously purchased items in the iOS 11 Appstore app.

Anybody who is an Instructor or above in Apple School Manager can see and redownload their previous purchases when they tap on the profile 'head & shoulders' icon at the top right of the Appstore screen (provided the 'View Apps and Books' option is ticked in the privileges section for the user type in ASM), but Student and Staff users cannot View Apps and Books and there is no option to correct this... Even if we could correct this for students, allowing Viewing of Apps and Books now also allows purchasing of free apps, which was not the case in iOS 10 and would not suit our deployment.

We used to simply attribute VPP licenses to users (or entire ldap user groups) with managed Apple IDs in iOS 10 - then the users could find them in the Purchased section of the Apple Appstore on their iPads and download them - done in a second, very simple and no messing around creating and attributing apps in Self Service. This worked because the Managed Apple ID would not allow 'Purchasing' of any apps, even free ones, so the students could browse the Appstore but not download anything the school had not attributed a VPP license for.

Now, with iOS 11 those same Managed Apple IDs cannot access the Purchased section of the Appstore any more, and the system is broken... They still have the VPP licenses for the apps, but there is no way to get to them in the Appstore. Looks like we will have to go back o the old two-step procedure: attribute VPP licenses to user groups, then configure each app in the Mobile Device Apps section to appear correctly in the self-service. This is fine if you have a few apps to do, but we have over 400 in use - plus it is just an extra step where errors and bugs creep in.

It would be awesome if we could set up a GROUP of APPS to target a GROUP of USERS in the Mobile Apps section - like setting up up a VPP license attribution, you select a bunch of apps and give licenses to a bunch of users. But to configure Mobile Apps you have to select an individual app and configure each separately… Even better, set the Self Service to simply mirror the VPP Attributions, so attributing a VPP license would automatically make the app appear in the users Self Service.

Here's hoping that Managed Apple IDs with Student privileges are able to see their Purchases again soon - maybe in iOS 11.0.1? And this is definitely a change brought on by the iOS - we have a few management users with multiple devices using the same managed Apple ID, and under iOS 10 on one device awe still have purchases, where on the other device on iOS 11 it's no dice...

[Klenke_daniel]

We are currently having the same issue. I got off the phone with apple and they said MAID accounts should have never been able to do that from the get go. Maybe if enough people call and complain something can get done as this causes a lot of issues for us with upwards of 2000 iPads. I'll attach the article they gave me with what MAID accounts are used for.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205918

[IIL]

As a temporary workaround, we have upgraded all of our teaching staff to 'Instructor' privileges in Apple School Manager, and allowed them to 'View Apps & Books' in the content privileges for all Instructors - this means they can see and download purchased items, which include any VPP licenses we have attributed. This works for staff members, but is not a possibility for students - and would allow them to 'buy' any free apps too, which is definitely not what we need...
So, for students we have reinstalled Self Service Mobile for the time being. I have no problem with the Self Service Mobile app as such, it is just that this adds an extra, and very time consuming step to distributing mobile apps. We have hundreds of apps unclassified in the JSS as this was not necessary if you used the Appstore to distribute via Purchased Items - but now I will have to go and set each one up to mirror the VPP attributions.

I have also now made a feature request for an option to set VPP attributions to be mirrored in Mobile App settings. If you think about it, if I give a VPP license to an ldap user or group I clearly want that person or group to be able to install the app - so why the separate step to then go and edit the mobile app settings and specify the individual ldap users and groups again for the app to be visible in Self Service? If a VPP attribution triggered an identical Mobile App configuration then it would save most of us a lot of time...

[Klenke_daniel]

Just to let everyone know I beta tested iOS 11.1 on an iPad with a managed apple ID and the purchased tab has returned. I recommend trying it our yourselves and seeing if it works as well. After testing the release of 11.1 it still does not work. But iOS 11.2 Beta came out the same day and it does work. Hope this helps.