I would like to develop an iOS app entirely for my own personal use without ever submitting it to the app store. I have searched this site and found that I would need to pay Apple $99 and join the developer program. There was one post which suggested that I would be removed from the program by Apple if I never used the app store. Is this correct?
Thanks.
ps. I have no wish to jailbreak any of my iOS devices
Apple will not discontinue your account if you never submit to the app store. It is important to realize though, that your certificates on device will expire and you will have to renew them... so it's not $99.
It's $99/yr. You will need to keep renewing if you want to keep your app on device.
If you know someone who is a developer, you could pay them to do the paid for stuff, this way you could pay much less and still develop it yourself. Then they could do an adhoc distribution and avoid the App Store.
Related
I am working with a team on a mobile application. Everyone would like to use and have this app on their phones. However when I tried to install this app on phones with Xcode I've reached the limit of 5 devices. I wanted to buy an Apple Developer Program account so that I can send this app to other with the help of TestFlight app. Can someone confirm if I understood the information that I found on Apple website correctly:
I can add testers to the app using the link which will be send to them
They will be able to download and test the app for 90 days
They don't have to have Apple Developer Account? (I am not sure about that)
Since the app will not be published but only uploaded for testing it will not have to go through review process
If someone has better idea how to install application on around 10 devices I will be happy to hear that. If someone has any experience with uploading Flutter app to iOS I will also be happy to hear if there are maybe some tricky parts during this process.
Your test users don't need to be part of your developer team, but they must have an Apple ID in order to download the TestFlight App from the App Store. The email you send the invitation to doesn't have to be their Apple ID.
If the users are not part of your developer program team then your app will need to go through TestFlight review before it is available to them.
The good news is that TestFlight review is not as thorough as release review since Apple understands the app is still under development. The bad news is that TestFlight review typically takes a few days for a new version vs the typical 12 hour review for an App Store release.
Once you have a version approved for testing, it is best if you can release new TestFlight builds within the same app version. New builds do not require a manual review and can be approved for testing automatically.
If you change the version then another manual review is required.
You understand correctly. Most of the tricky parts handled by XCode usually but if you encounter any issues don't hesitate to ask.
I've created an app that I'm using for research for general data collection/exporting. As of right now I have to reinstall the app every 7 days or so because the certificate it's signed with becomes invalid and it crashes on startup. From what I can tell the only way to achieve this is to buy a developer license. I just wanted to make sure there was no other way.
You’ll have to sign up for a paid Apple Developer account. Then your apps can be tested for a year before having to be reloaded, you have access to more in-app capabilities and can submit apps to the App Store. Hope this helps.
I want to put an app I wrote on my phone and use it long term. I don't have a paid developer account so right now it expires after 7 days. Is there any way I can use my app without paying $100/year for a professional developer account (without jailbreaking)? Seems kind of ridiculous that I'd have to pay to use my own app on my own phone.
As you could see below, you need to pay for developer program to continue using your app in your device or as the comment suggests you can rebuild and sideload again and again but you'll lose all the data of your app.
Image Source: https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/
I'm looking for some clarification on developing for a single iPad. I have an app in the app store, however I want to make my own app for personal use that won't be submitted to the app store.
Is it possible for me to develop the app and get a certificate to "test" the app on my iPad, and just keep it on? I don't want to have to pay $299 for an enterprise account to publish private apps for a single iPad to use the app!
I've had a read about and I'm probably more confused now than I was before!
Any help appreciated.
Thanks,
Gary
If you enter the iOS Developer Program (99$ a year), you will be able to do what you mention: you will be able to generate a certificate and a provisioning profile and install the app on your device (actually, up to 100 devices).
The only thing is that you will need to create a new certificate/provisioning profile and rebuild/reinstall your app when the certificate expries.
No matter how you do it, you will always have to sign your app to be able to run it on a device.
All Provisioning Profiles expire, except the ones for the App Store (which you can't use without publishing your App in the App Store). So paying $299 for an Enterprise Account wouldn't even help you in this case.
However, if you want to run the App only on this single device, you could consider jailbreaking it. This would allow unsigned apps to run.
I have developed an enterprise app and its ready to use for my client.
My company bought an account and provides me with the credentials. So i created the ad-hoc distribution profile to distribute the app to my client's testing team during development using testflight.
But as i read somewhere, the account type iOS developer program can not distribute the app to any one,
If you want to distribute your app, you need to enroll for iOS developer [enterprise] program account. But that was not in my case, I was able to distribute my app to the client using the iOS developer program account.
I know, if you want to submit your app to the app store, you need to have an iOS developer program and,
iOS Developer Enterprise Program only allows you to distribute your applications to employees or members of your organization through Ad Hoc distribution.
Now my doubt is,
Is it really mandatory to submit our app to the apple for review to
ensure that our app is free of explicit OR else we can use it without
review? Why do we need an approval from apple when we are not
submitting to app store.
The client is telling they just want to get approval then they can sell it within In-House or B2B use.
Because my client asked me to submit our app to apple for just review, but do not want to put on app store. Once they approved, then they will distribute by using ad-hoc distribution profile.
Thanks.
You dont need to submit an enterprise app to the app store for review.
Your client's request is weird. It doesn't make sense. You can tell your client that Apple does not review enterprise apps.
Update:
your doubt:
Is it really mandatory to submit our app to the apple for review to
ensure that our app is free of explicit OR else we can use it without
review?
Answer: NO. Its not mandatory
Why do we need an approval from apple when we are not
submitting to app store.
Answer: You dont need an approval.
Now, there is a case where your client's request will fail for sure:
Assuming (for the sake of explanation) this app is a porn video viewer app, it'd never be approved by the Apple App Store reviewer. And if the enterprise build deploy is contingent upon AppStore approval, even that wouldn't happen (since the client is adamant)
Note: Enterprise accounts are not meant to circumvent Apple's pay wall. i.e., you should not distribute the app outside your organization.
Hope this answers your question. (if it didn't feel free to add a more specific question to the original post.)
3rd Update:
FYI Enterprise Developer account are not easy to obtain. If Apple Developer Center thinks your client is shady, they may have to manage with the regular developer account. The question you are asking has no credible sources for answers because no one would insist on doing something like this.
Is it really mandatory to submit our app to the apple for review to ensure that our app is free of explicit OR else we can use it without review? Why do we need an approval from apple when we are not submitting to app store. The client is telling they just want to get approval then they can sell it within In-House or B2B use.
You do not need approval, once you are enrolled on the enterprise scheme you will not need to get approval from apple for any applications created as an enterprise application.
However if you then want to sell it on the normal app market it will need to be done from a totally separate account and will need approving.
The enterprise license is a way of making sure that rogue apps do not start making the rounds as they do not need to be installed via itunes, they can just be hosted on a website and downloaded directly from there to the device.
I assume your client may be worried that you aren't going to provide a stable, malware free application and would like apple to authorise & test it first, even though it is not going on to the app store so they have peace of mind that if it's good enough for apple its good enough for them. Or that the MD once heard that Apple HAS to authorise it and they are just jumping through hoops for them.
Companies that are enrolled in the iOS Developer Enterprise Program (currently $299 / year) do not need to submit apps to Apple for approval or distribution. These companies can host and wirelessly distribute their in-house apps without Apple acting as gatekeeper.
If you are an external contractor who has been hired to code an app, you may need to hand the app over for them to sign with their Enterprise key so that they can then distribute in-house.
It would be (very) unusual for an Enterprise Program member to submit their app to Apple for review because it is unnecessary. And so far as I know there is no option to do this without setting up all the app details in iTunes Connect and pretending you were going to sell the app.
Update 1:
#Praveen-K: What doubt is there? If you want to have Apple "test & approve" your Enterprise app (a really bad idea) then you will need to:
Create a fake Apple store app
Fill in fake info in iTunes Connect
Provide an on-sell date a long way onto the future
Provide all the login info and access to your servers that the real app requires
Assist the Apple app approvers in accessing your own data to get approval
Then, after approval, delete the app from iTunes Connect and the App Store
If this does not answer your question then perhaps you need to make sure your question is very clear.