How to install applications to iOS devices

This article describes how to remotely install applications to managed iOS devices. If you're interested in iOS application management, consider upgrading your site to the Enterprise Plan. See more in How to upgrade subscription for more information.

How to prepare free App Store apps for deployment

Requirements:

Device user needs to sign in to iTunes with his/her Apple ID.

Miradore admins can remotely install applications from the Apple App Store to managed iOS devices. In order to be able to remotely install a store application, it must be available in the App Store and the user must sign in with his/her account and accept the installation. For supervised iOS devices, applications can be forced and installed quietly in the background when the device user is signed in to iTunes.

For more information, check How to add iOS App Store application.

How to prepare in-house apps for deployment

Another application type for iOS devices is in-house applications that can be used to install custom or private applications to managed iOS devices. In-house applications are installed by providing and defining an HTTPS link to the application manifest file or by uploading the application package to Miradore. There is no need for an App Store login but the user must accept the installation. For supervised iOS devices, applications can be forced and installed quietly in the background without user interaction. Note that developing and deploying in-house applications require the iOS Developer Enterprise Program.

For more information, check How to add iOS In-House application.

How to prepare paid App Store apps for deployment

Paid App Store applications can be only deployed using Apple Volume Purchase Program managed licenses.

Check About Apple Volume Purchase Program if you are interested in deploying company-licensed apps to iOS devices.

How to deploy App Store apps without users needing to login to iTunes

With the Apple VPP, it is possible to deploy free and paid App Store applications so that iTunes sign-in is not needed at the device end. You just need to acquire licenses to the application (even for the free) and assign those licenses to devices in Miradore. After that, the Apple VPP will deploy the application to the device(s). The key point here is that the licenses need to be assigned to the devices, instead of users, which obviates the need to sign in to iTunes at the device end during the application installation.

For more information, see About Apple Volume Purchase Program and How to manage Apple Volume Purchase Program licenses.

Instructions for application deployment

After you have successfully added the application, you can start deploying it. There are numerous ways the application deployments can be done in Miradore. In the following example we will use the applications page.

1. Navigate to Management > Applications where you can see the list of current applications. Select the application that you wish to deploy and click the green Deploy button.

2. After that, a wizard for deploying the application opens on top of the window.

Select the desired devices and press Next.

3. Validate the deployment details and press Deploy to start installation

4. In the last screen of the deployment wizard, you'll see a notification which tells you whether the deployment was successfully added to the deployment queue or not. You may exit the deployment wizard by clicking Close.

The end-user of the device will see a notification on his/her phone and must accept the installation. For supervised iOS devices, applications can be forced and installed quietly in the background without user interaction.

If needed, the end-user is also prompted to log in into the App Store.

The Administrator can monitor the status of the deployment, for example, by navigating to the Management > Action log page or by navigating to the device page and opening the Action log tab. We are unable to get real-time application installation status from iOS devices. Statuses are updated every 15 minutes, but you can also manually refresh the status using the Sync now action.

The list of completed deployments for a device can be seen from the Application deployments table on the device page.