Allowing Users to Remove/Uninstall Available iOS Apps

Iron Contributor

Hi All,

 

Quick query. I have been creating a Fully Managed/ Supervised iOS build.
Quite successfully, much smoother build than prior to iOS 14.x. But there is one thing I am trying to do but not even sure it is possible as  yet.

I have most of the M365 Apps as Required for the iOS devices. and there are a number of Available apps on offer too.
The one thing that is totally different (or appears to be ) is that if an Android user installs an app available from the Corporate Android Play Store, they can uninstall it if they find they no longer require it, or for any other other reason. However, on iOS devices if a user installs an app from the Company Portal (VPP) then once it is installed there is no 'local' option to Uninstall or Remove it.

In the image, Fig 1 is a personal registered  iPhone 7 as you can see the BBC News app, when long pressed gives you the option to Remove App. Where in Fig 2 is a Corporate Managed/Supervised iPhone 7, the option Remove App is not available. I have gone through the Restriction and Features Configuration Profiles and enabled or disabled the obvious; but no joy. Obviously I can create uninstall groups for each app and then add users to these groups when they need something uninstalled, but that is a major overhead and I have not included that in the cost model going forward.
Any ideas?

3 Replies

@MoZZa

 

Not sure if you ran to this article before, you may need to re-sync the devices with MEM to receive November update. 

 

Hope this helps!

Moe

 

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/intune-customer-success/microsoft-endpoint-manager-support-fo...

 

Moe_Kinani_0-1611112483902.png

 

Hi @Moe_Kinani 

 

The issue here is the apps in question have always been set as Available and not Required.
As with our Android apps/devices, Uses cannot uninstall Required apps, but can uninstall apps they have installed themselves from the Managed Play Store.
I want our iOS users to have the same experience.
So all Required apps are only removable from the MEMAC console (as expected) and apps that are available to them via the Company Portal for enrolled devices, the users are able to install and uninstall them whenever they choose to do so.

 

 

It looks like it is by design by apple when using MDM and Homescreen Layout:

"When you use the Home Screen Layout settings to add pages, or add pages and apps to the dock, the icons on the Home Screen and pages are locked. They can't be moved or deleted. This behavior might be by design with iOS/iPadOS and Apple's MDM policies."

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/intune/configuration/ios-device-features-settings