Pre-installed Apple Apps & VPP

[willsmithcc]

Hi all!

Question... As you all know, Macs that ship from Apple include their iLife and iWork suites.

We have a VPP/Apple School Manager account and we have plenty of licenses for all of the apps. However, the apps won't update via Self-Service. I keep getting notifications to update them through the App Store.

What am I doing wrong? Shouldn't VPP pick up the fact that these apps are pre-installed and begin to manage them? Or do I need to delete these apps and distribute them via Self-Service?

Thanks so much!

[mmcallister]

Delete and reinstall

[baw128]

I spoke to an Apple rep a couple of months ago and was told that the problem is the default macOS apps aren't installed by app store so VPP can't control them to do the update. The iOS side has the option to Make app managed when possible, but the macOS side doesn't have that option. I'd be interested if anyone has an idea on how to convert without uninstalling and reinstalling.

[blackholemac]

You could write a script as part of your provisioning scheme that deletes the preinstalled app preemptively and forgets the package receipt at enrollment time or even first login.

rm -R /Applications/<your app name here>
pkgutil —forget <your receipt here>

[GabeShack]

@baw128 Looks like the make app managed checkbox won't work even on iOS.
From what Im seeing, preinstalled Apple Apps are not able to be managed and either require you to delete them first and re push, or wipe the device before enrollment.
When I reached out to JAMF about this, they did say this looks like an issue on Apple's side with requirements to sign into an apple id before the preinstalled iOS apps are usable and therefore cannot be managed even if you check the Make App Managed checkbox.

Gabe Shackney
Princeton Public Schools

[nikgio]

@gshackney This would answer our current dilemma. I didn't want to "like" your comment, because I don't like it at all... we have about 900 devices already in use and another 850 just delivered that we have to set up. The new 850 will need to use these apps, and it looks like we have to run through initial setup, wipe and set them up again just to get those apps to work.

[gbyers]

To avoid this we DFU new iPads before we hand them out. We have a deployment of 25,000 iPads in k-12. We just replaced 6k of them on their replacement cycle this year and YES it is a tedious task but worth the time investment in the long run.

[GabeShack]

Apple fixed this however in iPads running iOS 12 (I think) and later. The preloaded apps can be overwritten on these with an MDM App store push of them. I've confirmed this works in the newer shipped iPads without having to wipe them
Gabe Shackney
Princeton Public Schools

[cdenesha]

Hmm I just tested with iOS 12.1.1 and it was still a problem for us.. will have to check again