I have a customer who is using an app on their iPads that was developed by a third party who is no longer around. The app is not in the AppStore. They were explaining to me how once a year they need to login to TestFlight.com to reset something. I looked at Testflight at as far as I can tell, its a testing platform, not for production use. I assume they are renewing the dev certificates or something similar.
Does this make sense? Is this a legal way of running a native app on an iOS device?
What are the benefits of services like TestFlight?
Your Enterprise Certificate
Enterprise apps must be re-provisioned once a year. You will need to login to the Apple Dev Center, refresh your Provisioning Profile, resign the app, and re-upload to TestFlight.
TestFlight And HockeyApp
In addition to Testflight there is also HockeyApp.net. These are services that allow you to manage an app either during test using Ad Hoc certificates from Apple or acting as a managed AppStore when developing Enterprise apps.
It also has a number of great features, including, crash report collection, managing of testers and their feedback, update notifications on the client, test device UDID management, and verifying that the tester has actually installed the correct version.
All these things are incredibly useful to someone that has to deal with these sorts of things professionally.
Enterprise vs. Ad Hoc
Enterprise certificates from Apple allow you many of the same privileges as the AppStore. This arrangement requires you to be a business with a DUNS number and you must sign a contract with Apple that states you will use this exclusively in adherence to their terms. This costs about $299/year and the app is good for one year once correctly signed. You can install it on any iOS device in accordance with the contract you signed with Apple.
Ad Hoc is what is used for in-house testing. Each device UDID has to be added to the Apple Developer Portal, attached to the provisioning profile, downloaded, and resign the app with the new provisioning profile. Cost is $99/year, maximum of 100 devices, and devices can only be removed once a year. Each app expires after a few months.
Test Flight is an apk/ipa (app binary) distribution mechanism. So they may be accepting testflight's profile on their phones if their UDID was registered to receive drops of a particular app.
TestFlight can be used for distributing apps signed with Enterprise Certificates, i.e. apps that can't be distributed through AppStore.
Another possibility is that the app is run on only a few devices, registered as test devices on a regular Developer Account. If that's the case, the limit of numbers of devices should be noticed: 100 devices.
Related
I've looked for hours at other similar questions, but not sure if the other answers apply in my case, and things have changed since I last did this:
I am a sole trader writing an iPad App for an Agency. The app is ultimately for a Company they are working for.
The app will be distributed free to a small number of employees in the Company (<30);
Its a hybrid app, much of the code running as javascript in a webview. Ideally I wish to avoid Apple review of the app during distribution as this is an unknown to me.
I also do not wish to release the source code to Agency nor Company.
What's my best option for distribution? Ad-hoc? Set Company up with an Enterprise account? VPP?
I would use Ad-hoc, as it seems simpler, but not sure what happens after 1 year expiration...
Be grateful for any pointers.
If you have Apple Developer Enterprise Program (299 USD/year)
Ad Hoc
You can distribute your app to limited number of registered devices, but you need to sign every year before your provisioning profile expires, if you don't sign your app again, it will start to crash on opening after expiration date.
In House
You can distribute your app without any device limit, but you need to sign your app every year.
If you have Apple Developer Program (99 USD/year)
Ad Hoc
Same as enterprise program
App Store
Once you submit and release your app, you don't need to sign again.
I think your best choice is distributing your app via App Store if the company is okey with it. Review process is not a big deal after all, you can shape your app according to rejections reasons.
Apple Developer program - Adhoc Distribution
Cheaper ($99)
No Appstore review needed
Supports up to 100 device (device list can be modified yearly)
Need to rebuild with updated provisioning profile when new device is added
Need to rebuild the app on yearly basis when provisioning profiles expire
OTA can be used to distribute the app to users
Enterprise Program - In-house Distribution
Expensive ($299)
App can be installed into any device without a device limit (no rebuilding required)
Need to rebuild the app on yearly basis when provisioning profiles / distribution certificate expire
No Appstore review needed
OTA can be used to distribute the app to users
I would go with Apple developer program since you user base is around 30 and its a cheaper option.
Have You looked at:
https://www.diawi.com/
Or
https://www.installrapp.com/
?
Note: You must register their devices to your Apple account first
I have a normal Apple Developer Program (not the Enterprise one)
and I need to distribute an iOS application without adding each UDID to the provisioning profile. I do not want to jailbreak iphones.
It is possible to make an Enterprise provisioning profile where the signed applications can be installed on any device without adding it to the provisioning profile. (Correct?)
And it is possible only with Enterprise program. (Correct?)
Are there any other ways to get rid of this dummy need of adding the betatester's UDIDs and recompiling the app whenever new testers come, with Apple Developer Program only?
Providing you're already registered with the Apple Developer Programme, you can upload your build and from within iTunesConnect use the TestFlight options to make your app available for download.
There are two options, 'Internal Testing' and 'External Testing'.
(In answer to question about the profiles, you don't need to have an Enterprise Provisioning Profile.)
As you wish to make the app available for unknown devices, you will need to use external testing. Here is a link to Apple's info on it https://developer.apple.com/testflight/
You will need the email addresses of the beta users (up to 1000 users) as those will be used to send an invitation to download via TestFlight from the device they wish to download to.
For external testing, your app will need to be submitted to Apple for Beta Review, which normally only takes a day or so for them to approve. Once approved this build is available to invite the beta testers to download
I hope this helps
I know in iOS developer program, a developer can use an ad hoc distribution profile to build an app, and this app is for testing purpose and can be installed on up to 100 devices.
Is there such a limitation for app developed with a Enterprise program account?
And since this app is for internal use, does the employee's device need to be configured somehow to use this in-house app?
And is there any technical problem if I distribute the in-house app (for free) to a larger audience via a web link or email? I know this can be interpreted as violation to the Enterprise program, I am just wondering if this is technically doable.
There is no limitation on how many devices you can install the enterprise app. All you need is properly configured provisioning profile and signing identity and the UDID in the provisioning profile. I do believe you can distribute ad-hoc similarly as with normal iOS developer account, even easier.
There is much information available on StackOverflow already:
IOS Enterprise Distribution Through OTA
Enterprise distribution of iOS applications
iOS Developer Enterprise Program
iOS Enterprise Deployment / Expiration
iOS enterprise account for distribution
iOS Enterprise Developer Program
Deploying ios apps wirelessly .Enterprise apps
And many more: https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=ios+enterprise
Please read through those first and you will get most of the information you need.
Beginning iOS 9, another important consideration is on first install Apple prompts you with an 'Untrusted Enterprise Developer' prompt. This requires you to go to Settings: General > Profiles and select 'Trust X' for the correct profile.
Not a show stopper. However, an important consideration if you need to do a large distribution as testers need to be informed.
My company has developed an iOS application for an external client. They have done some initial testing with us distributing the app via our testflight account. They now want to test it on a wider audience. They have decided to use their own TestFlight account and handle all the logistics of giving iPads to users and managing the distribution/testing of our app.
Is it possible for me to give them my .ipa file that they can in turn sign with an Ad Hoc apple certificate they create/mange then use their testflight account to distribute.
In short my company does not want to give away our source code nor burden the client with installing/learning xcode just to compile the app with their certs over ours. They are not developers but feel comfortable using an apple developer account and testflight. They would prefer not to set up and use xcode.
Thanks!
Googling this topic I get a sense there are three ways apple allows to distribute the app to end user. However it's still quite vague how exactly each one of these methods actually work and differ.
Ad Hoc Distribution - how does this really work. does this method not require the app to be submitted on app store ? If Yes , then where will the user download the app from and how the installation procedure works.
In-House Distribution - how does this work ? some text i came across suggests we can host the app on a private enterprise server and allow users install from there. If this is true apple would have no way to regulate the app.. not so clear.
App Store deployment - this one i understand how it works as a consumer of some apps i have purchased from app store. In this case the app will have to be submitted to app store first and then available for any number of users to install.
The other question I had on the same context is to be able to deploy the app via one of the ways what type of dev license is required to be procured from apple ?
Ad Hoc Distribution - This is most commonly used for sending the applications to beta testers, you register their UDID in your Developer Portal and then send them the app bundle and a provisioning profile. They drag these into iTunes and can install the application.
In-House Distribution - If I recall correctly this is only available if you have Enterprise license, you can deploy this app to all devices associated with that account (so all of your companies phone for example)
App Store Distribution - This is when your app ends up in the App Store, you submit it to Apple after code signing it, then they review and it gets accepted.
Hopefully that clears things up a bit for you.
For distribution methods 1 & 3 you must have paid the $99 developer fee, number 2 you must have paid $299 (I think that's the right price) for the enterprise developer license.
For the Ad-Hoc thing: You can add up to 100 devices per year to your dev portal. Those 100 devices are then able to install specially signed Apps from you.
To add a device to your portal you need it's UDID. To distribute an App via Ad-Hoc you need to create a special Ad-Hoc distribution profile for the App, sign it with this profile and then send the compiled .app file bundled with the profile to your users. They will then be able to install the app via iTunes, just like they've downloaded it from the App Store.
Note: Removing a previously added device from the list does not increase the device count by.
That's pretty much it, am not familiar with in-house distribution.
Apple's definition of "in-house" distribution basically means: buy an enterprise developer account.
http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/apps/in-house/resources.html