I am developing an app that I would like some people to download it. Specifically, the people who attend my event. I've looked into the different ways of doing that, and I couldn't find how to do it. Is there a way to do it other than the App Store? Like a download link or an email attachment?
Scenario: I have an event taking place at some venue. People who attend must download an app before entering the place.
You can use TestFlight or the iOS Enterprise Program
TestFlight
With TestFlight, you can let people 'test' your app. You can setup up to 25 internal testers and 1000 external testers to test your app.
Maybe it isn't exactly, what you are looking for, but it's the cheapest way.
They then can download the TestFlight-app and will see the apps which they are invited as beta-testers. It's a very easy and nice possibility, because you also can update your app and the testers will receive updates.
Check this tutorial how to make a proper setup to do that.
iOS Enterprise Program
With this special program which costs 300$/year you can install your apps within your enterprise. But your company must be a company with a D-U-N-S number to apply. Check the details on the apple website.
You can also use Diawi.com for that matter.
PROS:
1. Easy to use. Just drag the IPA file and the Provisioning Profile to the upload box. Wait for it to get uploaded. Generate Link. Send the link to your intended downloaders. They can download it super easy and fast.
2. No need to pass the app review in Apple.
CONS:
Few Users can download. Only the registered devices in your Apple Developer account can download the app which is limited to 100 and is renewable only for once a year.
If you intend this app for people not more than 100, use this. Otherwise use TestFlight that is already integrated in itunesconnect. The cons only is that the app needs to pass the review. Pros, up to 1000 people can download it.
Hope it helps.
Related
Is there a way how to publish an app to App Store but say that only few apple IDs can download this app? Or is there some other distribution option? The app is only for small amount of people and should not be distributed publicly...
You have a couple of different options:
1) "Public/Official" App Store
Your app will be visible (!) on the official App Store and technically anyone can download your app, but you limit the "access" to the functionality of your app with a login. Then you can distribute logins to the people you want to have access to the app. There's a slight chance that Apple might reject your app, but I've seen tones of apps doing this and get approved
2) "Customer B2B" App Store
As already mentioned, the recommended way by Apple is the VPP https://developer.apple.com/programs/volume/b2b/ There are also a couple of providers of "custom enterprise" stores like https://www.mobileiron.com/ etc.
3) Beta Testing
You can also distribute your apps with best testing services like Hockey or TestFlight. Unfortunately TestFlight builds expire after 60 days. Hockey builds expire once your provisioning profile expires, which makes both options not ideal depending on your needs.()
I'd go rather with option 1 or 2. The first one might be the simplest and fastest solution. The second one the "official" one.
No there isn't.
If you want to publish an app to a small amount of people you have other solutions:
TestFlight
Fabric
For this solutions you will need people email and the app will not be on the App Store.
The last solution is to provide a password/login system in your app (or lock code or something like that). But maybe apple will reject your app
Is there any way to distribute ios applications through my own website, not using app store?
I mean is there any way that enables end users to download the .ipa file from my website with their browser application and install it directly on their iOS devices?
I have looked around in the web and googled it, but it doesn't seem to be any option for it out there, I just want to make sure of it.
Thank You
There are several possibilities, which probably won't match your needs:
Since last month it's possible to test apps on a device without the need of a paid membership.
There's a possibility to deploy an app through a service like TestFlight, but this needs either a profile installed on the device (like HockeyApp) or always new build since the old ones expire after 30 days.
You could deploy an app with the Enterprise Program
The easy way you describe is not possible.
Apart from the options mentioned above there are 2 more methods.
Method 1:
You could ask the user to open a webpage in safari browser with the following link in it.
href="itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url=url of the manifest file"
The app is installed as soon as the user clicks the link.
Method 2:
You can also leverage iOS mdm solutions like Hexnode MDM though its bit of an overkill.
here is a link on how to distribute app without app store
UPDATE:
BuddyBuild service will stop on 1-3-2018, the other alternative I know is https://www.diawi.com
Old ANSWER:
Try BuddyBuild , after making a build you can take link to IPA file and distribute it as shown.
The options include:
App Store (free or paid)
Enterprise Distribution (must be within an organization)
Open source distribution
It does not sound like any of these will meet your requirements, so no.
Further explanation:
Just to be clear, the limitation is not in distributing your .ipa file, it is the ability for users to install it on their phone. iOS requires an app be signed by Apple (from the App Store), from an Enterprise certificate, or from a developer certificate when a valid provisioning profile includes the target device.
Basically there are three ways
App store
With this method anyone with an iPhone can have access to the application. You can distribute an unlimited number of applications like this. Apple gets a 30% cut. Of course, Apple must approve your application.
Ad hoc
You can distribute applications using ad hoc without going through the app store, but you are limited to a maximum of 100 devices. With this method you can distribute your application from a web site, email, etc.
Enterprise
The method is for internal distribution in companies with more than 500 employees. Apple does not provide any more public detail that I could find on this method.
It doesn't sound like any of these methods meet your criteria unless you have fewer than 100 customers and don't plan to exceed that number. It sounds like from the question your customers are not internal to your company.
I would advise contacting Apple. They might be able to arrange some kind of custom distribution deal.
You if don't want to upload your files to the already mentioned web services, you can host your IPA in your own computer and distribute over the internet using ngrok and the approach given by jithin.
I've created a server that does exactly that and also is protected by password. You can check it out here:
https://github.com/Edudjr/IPAServer
To send build to testers or client I am generally using installonair.com which allows to upload IPA file and generate short URL which we can provide to other users and they can download and install easily from that link.
There are other options as well like Apple Testflight, hockeyapp but I found installonair.com is the quick one.
If you have and Enterprise membership you can do this, but it really isn't what they want you to do on a large scale.
Take a look at this question: Deploying an iOS Application Using Apple Enterprise Developer Program
You can use enterprise distribution services like BuildCannon, but you still need an apple enterprise account. I use a custom solution, but it's a pain to maintain.
I have a system which I want to present to potential investors. It is a client / server system and the client runs on mobile devices.
The client can only be used when certain people are connected to the server via another app, so I currently don't want to upload it to the app store for public use.
When I present the system to investors I can make sure that the correct people are logged in and run the demo.
I read online and didn't find a suitable distribution mechanism. I don't want to bother my potential investors with details about finding their device ids so I don't think I can use ad-hoc distribution. I can't upload it to the app store because the service isn't available 99% of the time. Any other options"?
Thanks.
Well you options are limited, you can open a new Apple Developers Account for Enterprise distribution. But the license for these distribution does restrict the distribution to company employees only.
You can use the iOS 8 SDK and Xcode 6 to distribute your app to 25 beta tester, wihtout going thru review. And later Apple will allow you to beta test, with app review, for a 100 users.
But for now AdHoC will be your best option, and use something like HockeyApp or TestFlight for the distribution. But using AdHoc does require you to have the device UDID before hand as they need to added to the AdHoc Profile.
Best way to distribute iOS app for testing or demo is to use Testflight. It is much easier then distributing IPA file and letting anyone install it on their iOS device.
I would suggest using TestFlight as it is simple and reliable. The only thing is, you need to register with the device ID. You can send the testFlight build to your selected clients with this.
www.testflightapp.com
Make an enterprise adhoc of your application. Apple allows you to create adhoc of your applciation with 100 users allowed at max.
And then you can demo your application to 100 people.
If you "don't want to trouble the investors with finding their device ids", then test flight is your best options. Your investors just need to install test flight make there account(with really easy steps) on test flight. And accept your invite. After they are are in your team you can easily get there device id by clicking info button next to there name on screen, under people tab of website.
Check this image for detail:
My company has an iOS Enterprise Account to distribute In-House Apps. Now we want to develop an app for a customer. The question is: How to deploy the app to the customer's employee's devices? I heard about a "B2B Program", but I wasn't able to find any further details how to deploy to a special Business Store.
I know that there are a lot of discussion about this topic on the net, but I missed the fine details how the process is working in detail.
So what possibilities we have to get the app installed on the customer's employee's iPads?
EDIT: I don't want to invite beta testers or anything similar. I need an official way to install the app on the devices of the customers employees.
Another faster solution then testflightapp is diawi.com.
The link doesn't hold forever but it takes a few seconds to generate a download link.
You either use an archived IPA or a zipped .app , drag it to the relevant part of the site and it generates a download link for you.
We have been using this with a lot of customers with great success.
Just remember - the link is temporary.
Alternatively you can build a simple web page around the IPA file on a server you own (look at the generated diawi page for reference of the tags and info used).
You can also try OTA Distribution process, for more details go through this link.
Here download link is permanent and you don't need to use any third party tool.
How about using a Mobile Distribution Platform like MobileIron?
http://www.mobileiron.com
A few clients at my work use them and their services are pretty good.
I'm doing this for a client now. B2B is, I think, not what you want. Enterprise distribution is intended, by Apple, for in-house distribution. 'In-house' extends as far as out-of-house reps, and even independent contractors who use your client's in-house business app.
Your client should purchase his own Enterprise Developer's certificate, or ask you to purchase one for him. Use that certificate and associated provisioning profile to publish the app (in the usual way using the 'Ad-Hoc' distribution type). Then deploy over-the-air.
I'm working on an iOS app and would like to make it easy for a selected group of non-technical users to quickly download and try it. I won't have their UDIDs ahead of time, nor is TestFlight a viable option because it takes too long to set up. My company isn't large enough to qualify for the Enterprise option, either.
What I'm wondering is: can I submit an app to Apple that requires the user to enter a code at launch? Then I can simply give that code to my demo users (and to Apple for review) and submit it to the store. Or will Apple reject something like that?
Thanks.
The entering of a PIN is not a problem (lots of apps use PIN numbers to protect a user's own data, such as a password vault), but it seems that if the intent is to limit the audience of the app, then that that might run afoul of section 2.22 of the app store guidelines.
If the purpose is testing for a limited number of users, can you just do ad hoc distribution?
For demonstrating our apps to clients, my company uses our iOS Enterprise account. With that account (which costs $299/year instead of $99/year), we can make builds that we can distribute through our own restricted channels, instead of the App Store. Those builds are signed with an Enterprise Distribution provisioning profile, which does not require specifying which devices will be used.
After that, we simply restrict who has access to download our app. We use Testflight for this. It enables us to upload our provisioned app, and allows us to invite specific users to download the app. The process of downloading the app is easy enough even for our non-technical clients.
But since you said you don't want to use Testflight, you can distribute your Enterprise apps however you find to be easiest.