Question/Feature Request: String-based Version Specification (x.y.z) for `InstallBehavior.Version` in App:Managed

Question

YurikaYakeuchi OP

Created 1w

Replies 2

Boosts 0

Participants 2

Hello,

I'm currently working on implementing app installation features, referencing the app.managed.yaml declaration on GitHub: https://github.com/apple/device-management/blob/0a4527c5ea21825fd23e08273ccdb9e2302458ce/declarative/declarations/configurations/app.managed.yaml

My question pertains to the InstallBehavior.Version key. The current specification indicates its type as <integer>:

key: Version
  title: Version
  supportedOS:
    iOS:
      introduced: '26.0'
    macOS:
      introduced: '26.0'
    visionOS:
      introduced: '26.0'
  type: <integer>

Is there a way to specify the app version using a string format, such as x.y.z, instead of the integer (App Store External Version Identifier - EVID)?

Allowing for a simpler version specification would make app version management through MDM more flexible and efficient. I believe this would significantly streamline the deployment and operation of Apple devices within organizations.

Any guidance or consideration for this would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Boost

Answer 1

Device Management Engineer OP

Apple

1w

Only EVID is supported right now. I am not sure a version ID would be precise enough as I believe there are cases where an app developer can submit a quick-fix update with the same version id as a previous app - that would get a new EVID.

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Answer 2

YurikaYakeuchi OP

1w

@Device Management Engineer Thank you for the clarification regarding EVID. By the way, how can we discover past app versions? The Apps and Books for Organizations API's versionHistory does not return externalVersionId (EVID). This prevents us from deploying or managing specific historical app versions, which is sometimes needed by users (e.g., for stable older releases).

0