What is the difference between a development provisioning profile and an ad hoc provisioning profile?
Couldn't we always use the ad hoc profile for everything but the store?
An ad-hoc provisioning profile is used later in the development process, particularly when you want to distribute your app to a small or medium size group of testers that are not included in the iOS developer program for your organization. An app deployed with an ad-hoc provisioning profile will be almost identical to the version you submit to the App Store (ie. it will need a distribution certificate for push notifications to work, etc.)
Of course you could add your QA team and betatesters to the organization and use a development provisioning profile, but this approach has many disadvantages:
You may end up with many development certificates, making it difficult to manage them.
You are giving your betatesters the right to compile and run the app on a device. (This is a extremely bad policy.)
You want to test your app in the closest possible environment to the App Store environment. Development environments, like running the app from Xcode, can masquerade some bugs that will show up when you publish your app.
All Types of Provisioning Profiles explained in summary
Provisioning Profile simple definition/use
Provisioning profiles are used to authorizes a set of known iOS devices to run and install a given iOS app. If a target device have a profile installed matching it's own device Unique Device ID (UDID) and that of the app it is about to install then the device will be able to install the app otherwise the device won't be able to install the app.
Types Provisioning profiles and their use
There are 4 types: -
1. Development: - Used in development phase of the app to run the app on simulator and developer devices. (If a developer device is not in this list the in-development app can not be installed).
2. Ad Hoc: - Is provided to distribute the app to a known finite set of iOS devices outside the AppStore. These are very commonly used to distribute an app to testers via a third part testing service.
3 Enterprise:- Enable large enterprises to distribute inhouse applications to enterprise approved devices in a manner which is independent of the AppStore.
4 App Store:- Used for AppStore or for TestFlight.
Related
I have made an iPad In-House Distribution App which is installed in 2000 iPads of my company. Now, I want to enable App group to share few data between my Apps of same developer account. For that, I will have to enable App Groups for my App id and re-generate Development and Distribution profiles.
If I do that, will it affect existing installed Apps? Will it affect upcoming releases?
Simple answer to your query:
Change in provisioning profile won't effect on existing enterprise app, installed in user devices.
An enterprise app gets affected only, if you make any change (revoke/renew/regenerate) in your distribution certificate.
I'm building my app for iOS using ionic package.
https://docs.ionic.io/services/package/
I created certificates for both development and production, including push.
https://docs.ionic.io/services/profiles/
development - built successfully using ionic package, installed on iOS with no problem.
production - built successfully using ionic package, when I try installing it on iOS it starts installing the app normally, then when almost finished the app disappears and it ends up not being installed, no errors appear.
Why does it happen?
In order to test the production .ipa on my device, I'm installing it via the iTunes software. (I'm not publishing it in the App Store yet)
The same goes for the development .ipa, though for this one it's a given.
I found this old issue which suggests it might be due to bundles ids that don't match:
In-House App Disappears After Install
The widget id in my app's config.xml is identical to the App ID on Apple Developer.
Are there more places that are supposed to be identical which I'm not aware of? Perhaps info I'm inputting when creating the certificates?
My final goal is to publish this app in the App Store, it's not an In-House app - I'm stating this to avoid confusions.
I have faced the same issue when i was building my iOS apps , after a couple of research i came with this fact :
When you prepared the Production build (Store App ) it will not be able to install in the development devices . if you need to test that production app in your development device you need to build the app with ADHoc Provisioning Profile . then only it is able to allow you to install in the Development devices.
AdHOC provision profile is a distribution provisioning profile that allows your app to be installed on designated devices and to use app services without the assistance of Xcode. It’s one of the two types of distribution provisioning profiles that you can create for apps. (You use the other type of distribution provisioning profile later to submit your app to the store.) An ad hoc provisioning profile ensures that test versions of your app aren’t copied and distributed without your knowledge.
When you’re ready to distribute your app to testers, you create an ad hoc provisioning profile specifying an App ID that matches one or more of your apps, a set of test devices, and a single distribution certificate.
The App Store version app is, as its name implies, for use only when distributing via the App Store. It exists for signing your app for distribution via the App Store and can't be used for any other purpose. Unless you install an app that has been signed by it via the App Store it will obviously fail.
If you want to distribute an app for internal use to a few devices and for a relatively short period, you should use an Ad Hoc profile (which i explained in above ); if to a lot if users for an extended period, you need to register as a corporate developer and follow a different process.
For More Details regarding Adhoc refer the following link:
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/IDEs/Conceptual/AppDistributionGuide/TestingYouriOSApp/TestingYouriOSApp.html
You can't just directly install production build onto your test device, its against apple's policy.
So in order to do that you can export an Ad-hoc build and then you can install in your device, provided that device is already included inside your provisioning profile.
Ad-hoc builds works same as production builds, only difference is you can only install on those devices which are included in your provisioning profile for that app.
It is not possible to directly install Production iOS App on the mobile device. This can only be done via TestFlight. Step by step tutorial below.
Prerequisites
You have your Mobile App Prod build ready and signed
You have iOS mobile test device with TestFligh app on it
Step by step
On MAC open XCode -> Open DEveloper Tool -> Application Loader
Click 'Choose' file to pick up your build file from local machine and continue to upload
Once app is uploaded it will be visible from iTunes Connect console (wait until Processing is finished before submitting to TestFlight)
Once that's done, open TestFlight App on the iOS mobile device and download your new app.
I know the obvious answer : it's for distributing apps on the app store. But I have an app approved for release on iTunes Connect with no App Store profile. I just have an Ad Hoc distribution profile installed. What purpose does an App Store distribution profile serve ? I submit my apps through the Test flight program, is it not a problem as long as the build was verified and approved ? I don't want to risk the app somehow not working once it's on the app store.
To understand what is the purpose of App store provisioning profile we need to check the difference between them first.
Ad-Hoc Distribution :
By using this, App can be installed on 100 devices designated by the developer on his provisioning portal. We can prepare build using this only for beta testing or demos.
App-store Distribution :
By using this we can prepare build of the App to deploy to App store submission.
Your case:
As you mentioned that you submitted app with using ad-hoc distribution profile & its approved & ready for sale now.
Try to install that live app on the device, for which UDID is not added to Ad-hoc distribution profile. It will not allow to install.
That is the only difference.
I hope it will help you.
If your app made it this far and was approved for release, you're fine. In all probability if you go to the Member Center you'll find that an app store distribution profile was generated for you.
This should be helpful:
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/IDEs/Conceptual/AppDistributionGuide/MaintainingCertificates/MaintainingCertificates.html
Code signing is used in combination with your App ID, provisioning profile, and entitlements to ensure that:
Your app is built and signed by you or a trusted team member.
Apps signed by you or your team run only on designated development devices.
Apps run only on the test devices you specify.
Your app isn’t using app services you didn’t add to your app.
Only you can upload builds of your app to iTunes Connect.
If you choose to distribute outside of the store (Mac only), the app can’t be modified and distributed by someone else.
My iOS app just working on my developer devices other phones can't install I'm using phonegap. Other devices can download but when install get full its sticking in install. I think Problem in the Provesion or certificate.
If you haven't added the other devices to your provisioning profile, you will need to.
Also, take a look at TestFlightApp.com to help with the app distribution process during testing.
You need to add all devices you want to test on into provisioning profile you are using.
Here is a good answer how to do it:
How do I add a device to my provisioning profile?
You have to keep list of devices you are using for development only during development phase.
Apple is protecting themselves from you publishing application outside Appstore.
For submitting app to Appstore you need to use Distribution certificated - than everyone can install it - but only when downloading from Appstore - you won't be able to install that build outside Appstore flow.
During development you are only allowed to add up to 100 devices on your account. On enterprise account however there is an option to release "in-house" build - which allows you to install app on many devices - but you are not allowed to use that to distribute an app.
I have an Apple Enterprise account and have created an enterprise build and am assessing whether to host the build myself on a web server or use Testflight.
I'm currently playing around with Testflight and have uploaded a build and am trying to install into onto devices.
It seems it will not let me install a build onto a device unless that device has been registered with the Apple provisioning portal and the device's UUID included into the provisioning profile.
But isn't this contrary to the point of enterprise builds, where its not necessary for the apps to be registered with the portal?
And it makes it useless for Enterprise apps because even with my enterprise account the portal still says there is a limit of 100 devices that can be registered.
Therefore I must not putting all the pieces together conceptually. I don't understand what's the point of using Testflight for Enterprise apps if the app udid must be registered with the portal?
You need to make sure you're code signing the application with a Distribution provisioning profile, and have your Distribution certificate installed in your keychain.
It sounds like you're accidentally code signing with a standard Development profile/certificate, which is why your app will only run on that profile's listed devices.