iOS managed contacts - how to deal with that?

Hi Patrick,

I'm the developer of Enterprise Contacts — worth mentioning upfront so you can weigh this accordingly.

To be honest about what it does and doesn't do: it won't solve the 3rd party app isolation problem (contacts land in the native iOS address book, so WhatsApp etc. can still read them). If that's your hard requirement, it's not the right tool.

What it does solve is the sync complexity. It pulls contacts directly into the native iOS Contacts app from three sources, all controlled via Entra ID group memberships:

- Entra ID users (security groups)

- Shared mailbox contacts

- The user's own Exchange contacts folder

No MDM profiles needed. No Outlook sync workarounds. Authentication is via MSAL, contacts are encrypted on device, and configuration lives entirely in Entra ID security group descriptions — so there's no per-device setup.

It's currently in TestFlight (public beta) and will be free forever for any Microsoft 365 tenant: https://enterprisecontacts.eu

Happy to answer questions.

Thomas Starup