What's new in Jamf Pro 11.4

Jamf Pro, the gold standard in Apple device management, continues to build functionality helping Jamf Pro admins simplify work. Let’s dig in and look at the biggest announcements from the Jamf Pro 11.4 release, including support for visionOS, restrictions for third-party iOS apps and more.

Support for Apple Vision Pro

On March 7th, Apple’s release of visionOS 1.1 introduced mobile device management (MDM) support, making Apple Vision Pro enterprise-ready with the key foundations for deploying and leveraging the device at scale. In lock-step with Apple, we announced support for Apple Vision Pro the day visionOS 1.1 released with Jamf Pro 11.3.1, with continued support in Jamf Pro 11.4. This follows Jamf’s announced support for Apple Vision Pro within its Jamf Protect and Jamf Connect products.

Jamf supports management for a variety of use cases and workflows. Let’s take a look at what these are:

• Device enrollment: This includes support for both Account-Driven User Enrollment and Account-Driven Device Enrollment. Whether the device is personally owned or organizationally owned, users can enroll their Apple Vision Pro devices easily into Jamf Pro.
• Configuration profiles (similar to Mac, iPhone and iPad): Deploying configuration profiles streamlines the user experience, protects company data and pre-configures apps and accounts to access work resources.
• App deployment: The App Store for Apple Vision Pro has more than 1,000 apps specifically built for visionOS. With Jamf Pro support, organizations can automatically install and configure apps used for work or make them available in Self Service.

"Jamf has a long history of offering same day support for Apple OS releases, and visionOS 1.1 is no exception,” said Henry Patel, Chief Strategy Officer at Jamf. “We’re excited to continue working with our customers as they explore the possibilities of Apple Vision Pro at work, with the confidence that their data is protected and secured by the full Jamf platform, from day one.”

Learn more in our blog or register for the upcoming webinar.

Restrict third-party app installation on iOS

iOS 17.4 introduced support for iOS users in the European Union (EU) to install alternative app marketplaces and apps from those marketplaces in accordance to the Digital Marketplace Act (DMA). For organizations in the EU whose employees use iPhone, they want a way to limit and disallow apps installed from alternative marketplaces.

In Jamf Pro 11.3.1 (with continued support in Jamf Pro 11.4), Jamf released functionality that allows organizations to manage and block these changes with a combination of new and updated commands and restrictions. This was made available to Jamf customers the day iOS 17.4 released on March 7, 2024.

Let’s take a look at the Restrictions and Commands changes and provide more context for each change:

Restrictions changes

allowMarketplaceAppInstallation (New): when set to false, iOS prevents installation of alternative marketplace apps from the web and prevents any installed alternative marketplace apps from installing apps.

allowAppInstallation (Updated): when set to false, iOS disables the App Store, and the system removes its icon from the Home screen. This also applies to alternative marketplace stores/apps.

allowAppRemoval (Updated): when set to false, iOS disables the removal of apps from an iOS device, including alternative marketplace apps.

allowListedAppBundleIDs (Updated): if present, will also apply to use of marketplace apps and marketplace-hosted apps.

blockedAppBundleIDs (Updated): will also prevent use of marketplace apps and marketplace-hosted apps.

Commands changes

InstalledApplicationList now includes a DistributorIdentifier for marketplace apps and marketplace-hosted apps, whose value is set to the app's distributor ID.

InstallApplication cannot be used to install marketplace apps or marketplace-hosted apps. On device-enrolled devices, it can be used to take over management of such apps if they are already installed.

RemoveApplication can be used to remove a managed alternative marketplace app or marketplace-hosted app.

Read more on the subject in our dedicated blog.

SMTP Microsoft Auth support

Security teams for many organizations require disabling basic authentication — an outdated industry model – and instead want to strengthen security with continuous and adaptive authentication. In Jamf Pro 11.4, support has been introduced for Modern Auth when connecting its SMTP server settings to Microsoft Exchange Online. This update provides admins a modern way to authenticate by using a method of confirming the client's identity in real time and dynamically adjusting access based on the client’s evolving behavior. This reduces risks that comes with using the legacy authentication mechanism for SMTP.

Basic authentication for SMTP is still supported.

App Installers enhancements

App Installers continues to enhance its offering by improving the end-user customization experience. With this release, Jamf Pro admins can now set global defaults for each customizable setting (for example, update notification frequency, grace period, or post-update behavior) under the end-user experience tab. With Jamf Pro 11.4, when a Jamf Pro admin wants to deploy a Mac app via App Installers, they only need to configure the end-user experience setting one time. (Admins still have the ability to customize the setting for each app separately, if they choose to do so.)

Additionally, App Installer deployments made available in Self Service will automatically detect computers that have had the app installed via a different mechanism such as a policy or manually installed by an end user. This enables admins to make app updates available via App Installers and Self Service without needing to create multiple smart groups and deployments.