Support "Non-Removable" flag on deployed iOS Store Apps
As noted here on the SimpleMDM blog, an option was added to iOS starting in 14.x where individual apps can be marked as "non-removable" by the administrator when being deployed.
https://simplemdm.com/blog/mdm-ios-14-macos-11-big-sur/
https://it-training.apple.com/tutorials/deployment/dm195
"To prevent a user from uninstalling a managed app, mark the app as nonremovable when you assign the managed app to a user or device. Depending on your MDM solution, you might need to deselect a Removable attribute or set a nonremovable attribute. With your MDM solution, you may also be able to set this attribute on apps that are already installed on a device."
I feel it would be a valuable feature to implement this flag so that users can still have the ability to add and remove their own apps on their managed device (which would otherwise not be possible via a restriction profile block), but are prevented from removing apps deployed by policy (Such as security apps, or authentication apps required by the company)
James Botting
shared this idea
This is now supported in the new Groups interface (currently in Preview).
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David K. commented
Removable
boolean
If false, this app isn’t removable while it’s a managed app. Available in iOS 14 and later, and tvOS 14 and later.
Default: trueIt will be nice to add this option on Assignment Group level
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Richard
commented
With Microsoft Intune you can configure each app as being removable or not by the user. We sometimes assign an app to devices that we are OK with the user removing if they decide they would prefer not to use it. However in other cases we want to ensure it is not possible for the user to remove an app. I asked your support team if there was an option for doing this within SimpleMDM and they were able to determine how Intune accomplishes it and asked that I post my request here. The response from your support agent is below:
I was able to figure out how Intune is able to control whether or not individual apps are allowed to be removed or not. It turns out there is a property that can be passed when installing an app via MDM that flags apps as removable/unremovable. If you'd like to see this implemented within SimpleMDM, I'd recommend that you submit the idea to our Suggestions portal