Apple to stop supporting Fleetsmith, a mobile device management solution, later this year

Apple will stop supporting Fleetsmith, its mobile device management (MDM) solution for administrators who need to manage Apple devices, later this year.

The company announced the decision in a support document, in which it said it had stopped new registrations for Fleetsmith as of April 21, 2022. Existing Fleetsmith customers can continue to use the service until October 21, 2022.

After that date, customers will no longer be able to log into the service and devices will no longer receive configuration files from Fleetsmith servers.

While the essence of MDM is to let customers securely and wirelessly configure devices, whether they belong to users or their organizations, Fleetsmith lets users monitor a range of Apple products, automatically managing apps, settings and security preferences while enforcing the best practices for IT and security.

Apple acquired the enterprise security software in June 2020, and many Apple devices have built-in frameworks that support mobile device management.

To help customers migrate from Fleetsmith to other MDM solutions before it is retired, Apple provides support documentation on selecting an MDM solution and planning an MDM migration.