Deploy Apple TV
Apple TV has device management capabilities, most of which are already present on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. These features make it easy to configure an Apple TV for use in many common education and enterprise scenarios, from dedicated classroom or conference room AirPlay destinations to kiosks using Custom Apps in Single App Mode.
Apple TV with tvOS 10.2 or later can take advantage of the features listed next.
Auto Advance for Automated Device Enrollment with Apple TV
Auto Advance is an additional option for Automated Device Enrollment that allows you to skip all Setup Assistant panes automatically with an Apple TV that is plugged into power and Ethernet. If Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager settings have already been configured for that specific Apple TV, it powers up and enrolls in mobile device management (MDM) without any user input after a brief pause at the Siri Remote pairing step. This setup allows MDM commands to:
Set the default language and region
Set the name of the Apple TV
Install configuration profiles to fully configure the Apple TV
Install apps
Supervision
If the serial number of the Apple TV appears in Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager, or is configured with Apple Configurator for Mac, Apple TV can be supervised just like iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices. Some existing payloads and commands also require supervision. For more information, see About Apple device supervision.
Naming
If the Apple TV is supervised, the name can be set with an MDM solution or Apple Configurator.
MAC address broadcasting
In tvOS 15 or later, Apple TV no longer broadcasts its media access control (MAC) address. To prevent unwanted pairing attempts, a new key in the TV Remote payload for iPhone and iPad—TVDeviceName
—can be used to remove Apple TV device names in the Apple TV remote widget.
AirPlay with Apple TV
Apple TV can be placed in conference rooms, classrooms, and other common areas. You can configure AirPlay to allow or restrict who can AirPlay to specific Apple TV devices. For more information, see AirPlay discovery.
Return to Service
Return to Service allows the process of resetting and reenrolling Apple TV devices in MDM to be fully automated over wireless network. In tvOS 18 or later, when the MDM solution sends the command to erase a managed device, it must provide the Wi-Fi details and define which MDM solution to enroll the device in.
If the device appears in Apple School Manager or Apple Business Manager, the MDM server configuration can be omitted. This triggers the device to check for an enrollment profile during activation. The device then erases all data and automatically proceeds through Setup Assistant using the previous language and region settings until it reaches the Home Screen, ready to be used.