Managing apps from the Apple App Store

Introduction #

With Relution, it is possible to distribute apps from the Apple App Store to devices. To do this, an app license must always be purchased - regardless of whether the app is paid for or not. An app license can either be purchased via the Apple Volume Purchase Program (VPP) or obtained via an Apple ID registered on devices. Depending on the use case, one or the other scenario makes more sense. If one wants to work on devices without Apple ID, there is no way around a VPP license. For information on how to set up VPP, please refer to the corresponding chapter.

Apps purchased in Apple School / Business Manager are automatically synchronized to Relution (from version 5.10). Apps are published in Relution in productive status and can be distributed to devices afterwards. Apps that should not be made available to all users can also be manually assigned to a different release status. An app can also be manually added to the Relution App Store at any time. However, VPP licenses are not automatically available for these apps and installation is only possible if users with an Apple ID are logged in on the corresponding end devices. It is possible to obtain VPP licenses for these apps at a later date.

Manage apps #

Apple Store apps are updated automatically by the operating system. In rare cases, however, this does not work. Here, there is a simple way to force an update. Execute an action Install app on the corresponding devices. This triggers a reinstallation and the devices validate the app version with Apple’s App Store. If the available version is more recent than the installed version, the existing app will be updated.