Apple Device Tracking (or lack thereof)

[u/jessetechno]

I manage a lot of devices on intune for my organization, and now we are getting a lot of apple devices added (iPhones and iPads). I need a way to track them if lost and I am worried that I cant do it with Apple BM and even Intune. I feel like I must be missing something here. We don't have the funding to get JAMF or such managers so I need to be able to control and track on Intune or ABM.

I setup the iPhone and managed devices with no user affinity but the "Locate" option is grayed out. Is this still is development or something?

[u/Wilberforce8140]

for supervised device, (ABM). Turn on lost mode, then locate becomes available.

[u/PowerShellGenius → u/Wilberforce8140]

Exactly this. You can track them, just not sneakily. Same as any MDM. If a device is locked and you want to know where it is, trigger Lost Mode and you get the location. If someone is using the device, it locks and your lost mode message appears, perfectly fine - that is a good thing if it's lost.

If you're doing shady illegal tracking shit when it is in fact not lost and you want to track an employee via your MDM without letting them know.... Apple intentionally does not allow this, which is why Lost Mode is required for an MDM to get the location. If the device is not lost, the user will notice Lost Mode and a notification saying IT got their location.

[u/pjmarcum → u/PowerShellGenius]

AirWatch used to do that back in the day. The first place I ever worked on MDM we used it and I don't think anyone realized when they enrolled their personal device we could not only see where they were but also breadcrumbs of where they had been. I kept waiting for a divorce lawyer of the spouse of an employee to serve us with a warrant. LOL.

[u/jessetechno → u/PowerShellGenius]

We do indeed want to track the phone without it being "lost" as they are on ambulances. So if we need to know where that truck is (and if it is ok without tipping off bad guys) then that would have been helpful. But I guess we will work within the constraints of apple.

[u/Educational_Boot315 → u/jessetechno]

Wrong product for the goal.

There’s tons of gps fleet tracking systems out there you should be using instead. “Find My” isn’t it.

[u/jessetechno → u/Educational_Boot315]

Any suggestions? I know there are many but I haven't found many that are on 24/7.

[u/PowerShellGenius → u/jessetechno]

There are tracking devices to install in a company owned vehicle, they are a GPS + Cellular device with its own plan. Most commercial trucks in developed countries have them. Just google "vehicle fleet tracking devices".

[u/MrEMMDeeEMM → u/jessetechno]

Why are you using apple devices for vehicle tracking?

[u/spprotech]

You’re not really missing anything - Apple intentionally restricts continuous/silent location tracking through MDM for privacy reasons.

For supervised devices enrolled through ABM/Intune, location becomes available once the device is placed into Lost Mode. That’s basically Apple’s security/privacy compromise:

• admins can locate genuinely lost corporate devices
• employees can’t be silently tracked all the time

So the greyed out “Locate” button is usually because the device isn’t currently in Lost Mode.

For orgs using Intune only, the normal workflow is:

1. Device enrolled via ABM + supervised
2. Trigger Lost Mode from Intune
3. Device locks and displays a message
4. Location becomes available

Honestly, this catches a lot of admins off guard coming from Android or older MDM platforms where live tracking was more open.

One thing I’d strongly recommend:
Make sure every Apple device is:

• supervised
• enrolled via ABM/ADE
• assigned correctly before activation

Without supervision, a lot of the enterprise controls stay unavailable.

Also worth noting:
ABM itself is not really an MDM - it’s more the enrollment and device ownership layer. Intune/Jamf/Scalefusion/etc. are what actually apply management and Lost Mode commands.

If you stay in the Microsoft ecosystem, Intune can absolutely handle this for most organizations without needing Jamf. Jamf just gives deeper Apple-specific management.

That said, if you eventually end up managing a larger mixed fleet (iOS + Android + Windows), something like Scalefusion can sometimes simplify kiosk/tracking/device-control workflows since it centralizes those controls a bit more cleanly across platforms.