It's an in-house iOS app for a small company. The company has iOS developer enterprise program. I am hoping that it is possible to distribute the app using their corporate website which has an SSL certificate i.e. without using an MDM server.
I am able to export an .ipa file for Enterprise Deployment. Thanks.
You can do it through their server in a few easy steps.
You need to first create an html page which the users can navigate to. This page will hold a button or link which will open a manifest plist with instructions to install the ipa file.
HTML:
itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url="The url where the manifest.plist can be found"
This means that you not only need to generate a .ipa but also a .plist which will be the manifest. You can search how to generate manifest for iOS. One thing to keep in mind, the path to the .ipa referenced in the .plist will need to be its path on the server for example:
https://myserver.com/myapp/app.ipa
For this example we can assume that the myapp/ directory holds the .ipa, .plist and .html file for the app.
Assuming all provisioning profiles are set correctly, the user should then be able to download the app.
Related
I am distributing my IOS app through enterprise account. I have hosted the html file on github and have placed the .ipa and plist files in google drives. Issue is my link (https://nylaa.github.io/) don't redirect me to download. Any help?
Issue was with the url in my html file. After correcting that I was able to redirect to plist file, but there the issue was that it was showing text file instead of downloading ipa. I resolved that issue by installing SSL certificate.
I have created one enterPrise App. And I followed the steps form the below link.
I also gave correct paths for Manifest file also.
After exporting App to the Server, If I use that link to install that .ipa file to my iPhone,
It's showing like the Below image.
How to install that .ipa file to iPhone without using third party tools or itunes connect?
Image showing like this while click on .ipa file link
You just need to enable the over the air installation while creating ipa file.
Check attached screen shots, it will help you more.
You can provide your ipa, small icon and big icon url in second steps.
Once you are done with this steps, you will get manifest.plist and YOUR_NAME.ipa.
Now you are ready to upload application. You can put both file on url which you enter in second steps. Then create one html file and write below code on button click:
Tap Here to Install<br />APPNAME<br />INSTALLED
Open html url in your device and installed application.
Best way to upload ipa and manifest is DROPBOX. You can upload both on dropbox Public folder and then you can get link and use it.
Cheers...
First of all, you should have the enterprise dev account. And when you archive, export enterprise ipa.
The following steps are how I deploy my enterprise ipa package.
There are some files you should provide, and all put on the server which is support https.
1. appIcon size of 512x512
2. appIcon size of 57x57
3. ipa package
4. a manifest.plist. In the plist file you should set the software-package to where the ipa address in the server, display-image(icon 57x57) and full-size-image(icon 512x512).
When all the files have done, you can download the ipa in the safari use the URL:
itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url=https://yourserveraddress/manifest.plist
I have followed all the below link steps.
Enterprise App Distribution Link
7th step for in-house app distribution
in that above link in step no 7, They mention we need to provide
"App URL. A fully qualified HTTPS URL for the iOS App file."
if we give server link in that field the .ipa file (which is generated using Archieve) will automatically upload to location? or we need to manually upload ?
You have to manually upload the ipa file to the location that you will be provided in Manifest file.
From your web page you will have to provide a download link, that download link will have a download link path to your manifest file, and manifest file will be containing the link of your ipa file.
I have an .ipa file which is signed with an Enterprise Certificate and using an inHouse distribution profile. I do not have the original source code with me. When I went through the distribution article in Dev center, I understood that it has to be archived for distribution purpose. I do not know how to archive an .ipa file. Could you please assist me in this? I'm new to this iOS development world.
I am going to assume everything was built and signed properly, with the proper provisioning profiles and distribution certificates.
You need the myApp.ipa and the myApp.plist generated by XCode, there may be others ways, but generating these via Xcode is the easiest. Once you have both of these files, upload them to your server (e.g. public_html/app/myApp.ipa and public_html/app/myApp.plist).
Your users navigate to your download page via Safari. On this page you include a link like the following:
Install the app
It is pointing to the myApp.plist. This must have (among other things) an item like the following (not sure about the exact format at the moment, but it is easy to spot if you open the .plist file in text editor):
<key>url</key>
<string>http://mydomain.com/app/myApp.ipa</string>
This URL is also usually added during the archive in XCode, but it can be easliy edited. It points to the .ipa (which really a zip file containg the executable and other resources like images).
When users tap "Install the app" in Safari, it will read the plist file, and if everything was successful up to this point, will prompt the user to install the application.
What kind of link do I need in order to download a .app file from Safari directly onto a device?
I want to do the same with .apk's, so any information / code snippets would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
You should use enterprise distribution. When you create your application archive there will be an option to do enterprise distribution. Once you do this you will get your archive as well as a .plist manifest file. Using these you should be able to create a link by following these instructions:
https://help.apple.com/iosdeployment-apps/?lang=en-us#app43ad871e
You will still need to get your users' UDIDs and create a provisioning profile for them to use. (iTunes required once)
Once that's done your users can click a link and directly install the app. (No itunes required!)
This is not possible with the current app store structure. Unless you are doing some sort of in-house distribution using an Enterprise developer license then the only way to get an app is through an app store link.
If you are thinking about using some kind of limited ad-hoc distribution you will still need to use itunes or iPhoneConfigurator to install it.