Updating Enterprise iOS apps remotely without Device Enrollment Program

Question

I have an Apple enterprise developer account with internal apps used on iPads that are only used by employees. Currently a manager sits and manually install each app on every website from an internal website. Searching for this brings up topics relating to the apple configurator and MerakiMDM, however it is unclear what these do and if they are the right solution.

It is also unclear to me if you actually need the Device Enrollment Program in order to set up a server and use MDM.

Is there a way to update and perhaps install enterprise apps on remote devices without the need for the Device Enrollment Program?

Answer 1

Since no one could answered this I tested it out and found a solution using OSX Server and no need for DEP.

I turned on my macbook pro and purchased OSX server in the app store. Once installed you should be able to go to your local ip or whatever the host name is that your server assigns you, something like markuss-macbook-pro.local. Depending on your settings and network setup you may need to add this in DHCP or DNS, personally I have an Airport Express and the .local domain worked for other Apple devices out of the box.

I was unable to find this online but OSX server comes with Tutorials under Help->Tutorials which shows you how to add devices and push remotely. See the image to see what it looks like

Basically you need to enable the profile manager in the top right corner of the profile manager page and configure Device Management. Once this is done you can go to your url, something like myserver.local/mydevices/ on your iPad or iPhone (make sure you use Safari). If you don't have a valid ssl you will need to accept the insecure connection.

After this was done I was able to manage my device, push apps, change settings and wipe it as long as it was connected to my local network. It seems that you will need a valid domain and SSL certificate that points to your OSX server in order to have this done from any connection but I have not tested this final part.

Answer 2

It would be better to use an MDM software with inbuilt app distribution capabilities, like Hexnode MDM. Supervised iOS devices can provide you silent app install features, and you can Achieve supervision with Device Enrollment Program (DEP) or Apple Configurator. So if you use Apple Configurator, you will not be requiring DEP. If you use DEP, then you can skip the initial setup steps, but you need to hard reset the device before using DEP. Since you need to just install the apps, hard resetting does not seem to be good. You do not need DEP for setting up and using MDM, but it is better to have if you need to turn on supervision. Apple configurator can also enable supervision, as said before, but you need to connect your device to a computer running Mac OSX. See this article if you want to know more options.

There are standalone MAM (Mobile Application Management) services available, which helps you install apps remotely without providing MDM features. With Hexnode MDM, you can have a complete Mobile Application Management experience - app catalog, app black/white listing, corporate wipe, in addition to device management functionalities.