From patch to progress: the evolution of the Jamf App Catalog with App Installers

Jamf App Catalog with App Installers: how far we've come

Managing software updates at scale has historically presented a complex and time-consuming challenge for IT teams. Traditional patch management workflows demand constant oversight and significant manual effort.

Streamlining app deployments

Jamf's App Catalog, enhanced by App Installers, streamlines macOS software deployment, shifting from manual patching to automated, policy-based updates.

In this session: “From Patch to Progress: The Evolution of the Jamf App Catalog with App Installers,” Senior Software Engineer Marko Heijnen explored how Jamf is transitioning towards smarter, hands-off software delivery.

The evolution includes the new binary for direct vendor downloads and the expansion to all Jamf MDM products. This innovation significantly reduces IT workload, enhances security through Jamf Threat Labs integration and prepares for a unified app management future with blueprints.

What’s new this year in the App Catalog?

• Jamf’s App Catalog has grown to include 1,441 titles and 300 active app installers, reducing manual update efforts.
• The upcoming updates to blueprints will unify app management across Jamf Pro, Jamf Now and Jamf School: promising a more efficient and integrated experience.
• Enhanced security and automation with insights from Jamf Threat Labs ensures that app installations are not only seamless but also robustly protected against malware.

Patch management: from manual to automated

Jamf's journey in patch management has been a transformative one, fundamentally shifting from reactive manual processes to proactive, automated software updates.

It started in 2016 with the initial rollout of the App Catalog, providing administrators with tools to customize and manage software titles for patching.

Early iterations, such as patch reporting in Jamf Pro 9.93 and full patch management in Jamf Pro 10 laid the groundwork by allowing IT teams to understand and act on the status of their endpoints. However, these initial steps still required considerable manual intervention, particularly for package creation and deployment.

A significant turning point arrived with the acquisition of Mondata and its product Kenobi in 2020. This strategic move brought in extensive knowledge and a broader catalog of software titles, accelerating Jamf’s ability to offer comprehensive update solutions.

Leveraging Kenobi's code, Jamf introduced the TIDAL Editor in July 2021 with Jamf Pro 10.31, empowering customers to add and modify their own software titles. This was quickly followed by the public availability of App Installers in March 2022, a feature celebrated for simplifying app deployment.

The subsequent integration of App Installers into Jamf Now (July 2023) and Jamf School (September 2023) unified app management across all Jamf’s MDM products, making automated updates accessible to a wider range of administrators — including those in education with fewer dedicated IT resources.

How much has the Jamf App Catalog grown?

The scale of this progress is evident in the numbers: the patch management catalog has grown from approximately 50 titles to 1,441, and the active app installers have expanded from 70 in March 2022 to 300 today.

This growth reflects a continuous effort to add more titles and ensure their seamless operation. Jamf’s content automation team meticulously tests every patch update and app installer to guarantee correct functionality, even when vendors make changes to bundle IDs or other critical information. This rigorous testing process, which in a single month can involve 745 patch updates and 165 App Installer updates, ensures high confidence in the deployed solutions.

App Installers: a new era of software deployment

App Installers represents a new era in software deployment, offering substantial improvements in user experience, security and compatibility across various Mac installers.

This innovation simplifies the entire app lifecycle for IT and Mac admins. Integration with Self Service+ allows users to select categories and provides administrators with control over the end-user experience, including global configurations for continuous deployment steps.

This addresses a major pain point by simplifying the deployment of common applications not available through the App Store, eliminating the need for manual packaging.

Jamf App Installers is designed to handle the complexities of diverse Mac installer formats, including packages, Disk Images (DMGs), and even nested packages. This capability frees IT teams from the intricacies of package generation.

A notable advancement this year is the introduction of a new binary, which supports direct downloads from vendors like Microsoft and facilitates delta updates for applications such as Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Office.

Delta updates significantly reduce network load by downloading only necessary changes, rather than full application installers. This is particularly beneficial for large-scale deployments. The new binary also brings enhanced logging, offering clearer insights into the installation process with details like application name, vendor, data found, and versions.

To bolster security, Jamf has integrated App Installers with insights from Jamf Threat Labs, performing malware checks before any app installer is published. This thorough testing process ensures that deployed software is not only functional but also secure. Although malware detection is rare, this proactive step provides an additional layer of confidence for administrators.

Additionally, the configuration process for app installer deployment in Jamf Pro has been refined, allowing IT teams to adjust deployment frequencies and batch sizes.

The future: blueprints and beyond

Blueprints provide a consistent and streamlined experience for IT and Mac admins, regardless of the Jamf product they are using.

Blueprints will not only enhance the speed and efficiency of scoping applications but also expand support to include apps that lack a bundle ID such as Java or script-based binaries.

By leveraging the existing App Installer binary, blueprints integrate seamlessly with Self Service+, reducing data transfer and enabling more robust app management capabilities.

Key takeaways

Jamf is continuously evolving its app management solutions, moving towards greater automation and efficiency. The journey from manual patch management to App Installers demonstrates a strong commitment to streamlining software deployment and maintenance.

• Automated efficiency: Jamf App Installers drastically reduce manual effort, offering a reliable and automated way to deploy and maintain macOS applications
• A unified experience: Blueprints unify app management across Jamf Pro, Jamf Now and Jamf School: promising a more integrated, efficient, and user-friendly experience with expanded app support.
• Enhanced security: With malware checking and ongoing improvements in logging and notification strategies, Jamf prioritizes both the security and the overall user and admin experience in software delivery.