preinstalled iLife and iWork apps aren't converting to managed applications when enrolled through an MDM

[Howard_Trevor]

Hello all, I’m currently having an issue with all of the iLife/iWork apps (iMovie, pages, keynote, GarageBand, etc.) not working after enrollment. They will open up and then immediately close. The only way to make them work is to remove them manually and then push them out again with the JSS. As you know that is less than ideal for the user or for myself. I reached out to support about the issue and this is what I got back...

The particular issue you have described is actually listed as a third party (Apple) product issue currently. Although I'm not overly sure its even a product issue they are recognizing on their end.

“Whats happening is that the preinstalled iLife and iWork apps aren't converting to managed applications when enrolled through an MDM. So the workarounds for this are to do exactly what you are doing in removing and re-adding them through the MDM itself.

OR

The other option would be to try and wipe the device thus removing the preinstalled apps and allowing the MDM to push them down.

What I will do is attach the PI to this case here so it has more weight although our recommendation would be to do one of the above mentioned workarounds”

Is anyone else experiencing this same issue and if so do you have a faster/better workflow recommendation?

[Howard_Trevor]

Support just emailed me back saying...

“Did a little digging on this and according to Apple the device needs to come from the factory with iOS 11.3 and iWork/iLife 4.0 or higher in order for the command to make the app managed to be successful. At that point, if the app is still prompting for an Apple ID when it shouldn't, a second InstallApplication command (essentially, reinstall of the apps) is needed.

Apple is working on this from their end to resolve for the future.

I hope that sheds a little bit of light on the issue for you but I might recommend reaching out to Apple as well to see if they have updated information on this behavior or anything coming in the future.”

But I opened up a box of new iPads that are on iOS 12 and I’m still seeing the issue.

[cdenesha]

We always Erase and Restore the iPads when they come in, which gives them a vanilla install without those apps. Otherwise the apps never become managed because they have no Device license. They are in some strange in-between where they will be gifted to the user's Apple ID when they sign in, when many of us are using Device Licenses for the apps now.

[Howard_Trevor]

@cdenesha what is your erase and restore process? I feel like that would be quite time consuming.

[atomczynski]

Plug in to configurator.
Select the device, or devices.

Action, Advance, Erase all content and settings.

You can further automate this as well.

[Howard_Trevor]

That does sound very time consuming. That adds a few steps and quite a bit of time when enrolling hundreds of devices at a time. I hope Apple gets to a resolution very soon.

[atomczynski]

I used Apple Configurator to read the device serial, I used that info to add to specific prestige. During the time it took to complete that task I ran the erase command.

I hope that Jamf will implement a way to add devices to prestige from a CSV.

[rhoward]

It is time consuming. We also have the same process (and same issue OP stated). We just have 5 carts that hold 36 iPads each hooked up to 1 computer per cart. It will wipe them all in ~45 minutes, but at least ti's automated.