what is mdm

MDM stands for Mobile Device Management. It is a solution that allows organizations to manage and secure their mobile devices, such as iPhones, iPads, and Macs, through a centralized system. MDM solutions enable IT administrators to deploy devices, configure settings, enforce security policies, and manage apps and updates remotely.

In the context of Apple's WWDC 2024 session titled "What’s new in device management," several updates and features related to MDM were discussed:

1. Automated Device Enrollment: This feature allows IT teams to ship devices directly to users, enroll them into MDM, customize the setup experience, and ensure they are ready to be managed without physically touching the devices. This is available for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and the new Apple Vision Pro (What’s new in device management).

2. Beta Program Management: MDM solutions can now manage beta program enrollments, including enrolling, unenrolling, and blocking supervised devices from beta programs using new software update declarations (What’s new in device management).

3. App Deployment and Management: IT teams can deploy apps directly to devices and ensure they are managed. The same process used for iPhone and iPad can be applied to Vision Pro, with new configurations, payloads, and MDM commands available for VisionOS 2.0 (What’s new in device management).

4. Software Update Management: A new software update settings configuration replaces legacy MDM commands, profiles, and restrictions, allowing organizations to manage all aspects of software updates on supervised devices (What’s new in device management).

5. Stolen Device Protection: This feature adds a security delay to prevent critical operations on an iPhone, such as enrolling in MDM, when the device is away from familiar locations (What’s new in device management).

For more detailed information, you can refer to the session What’s new in device management.