How to auto-update apps managed by MDM?

ios ios8 mdm airwatch
Ahmed Hamed picture Ahmed Hamed · May 28, 2015 · Viewed 16.3k times · Source

I'm building an in-house app that is distributed via the AirWatch app catalog. The app always runs with Guided Access enabled and all devices running it are managed by AirWatch. My questions are regarding auto-update:

  1. Is there a way that AirWatch can force the update immediately or as soon as the device comes back online, without asking for the user's input? If so, how does the app being open affect this behavior? How does guided access being enabled affect this behavior?
  2. Is there a link from AirWatch, perhaps an itms-services:// link, that the app can call to install the new version if a web service had indicated that it's no longer the latest version? If so, how does Guided Access being enabled affect this behavior?
  3. Is there any other good model for remotely updating the app that will spread the update as quickly as possible and under the above conditions? The solution can be using MDM or a custom web service or both combined.

Thanks a lot for your help!!

Answer

Dan picture Dan · May 28, 2015

If your devices are running iOS7 and you have your app Deployment settings set to "Auto" (as opposed to "On-Demand") the device will automatically take the update once it processes the APNs notification to do so. If the device is locked/offline it will typically check for outstanding APNs messages within a minute or so of being unlocked or coming back online.

What I don't know is since your app is in guided access mode if you're receiving a pop-up to install the new version. I've seen previously where if the app that requires an update is open iOS will prompt. What we have done to battle this is embed a check in the app that phones home to see if the app is current. If the app is NOT current the user can't do anything until they update their app.

Regarding a direct-link to the App Catalog to update the app that might get tricky with guided access enabled. Before you even try to tackle that issue understand that the app catalog webclip URL contains the UDID of the device as of AW7.1 (I think). Since the UDID is no longer programmatically accessible code-side AirWatch allows you to push the UDID upon app installation in the Deployment/Application Configuration section. You can embed {DeviceUid} into the key share on the device which will make it accessible for that applciation, hence allowing you to create the appropriate App Store URL within your app.

Good luck

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