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iPhone app without AppStore
I work for a software company which creates bespoke applications for customers - currently just ASP.NET internal applications. Due to the growth of mobile, we've been considering creating mobile apps for our customers. These apps would be extremely specific to a customer so we would not want these in any app stores.
While with Android this is obviously relatively simple, but seeing as the distribution of iOS apps is restricted to the App Store (as far as I know!) we would be unable to create iOS apps. Am I missing anything - i.e. is there a way to distribute apps without using the App Store?
There are two schemes designed for this scenario.
First, there's Enterprise. This is (kind of) like delivering ad hoc builds. There are restrictions but it doesn't go through the App Store or a review processes.
More recently, there is also a special B2B channel. Your customers download from the App Store, but the app isn't public. Other than having to go through review, the other disadvantage is that the scheme is not available in all countries. This may not be a problem for you, of course.
A lot of clients I work for want the "publicity" of being in the app store but don't want everyone to have access. The way around this is to create an app that requires a login, with credentials that you control server side.
Consider building an HTML5 app. This way you can distribute it yourself (and the user can easily add it to their device as a link (which looks like an App icon).
Related
The company, that I work for, wants to develop mobile apps using react native. The idea is to reuse the content on the websites instead of creating native views.
The current decision is to implement the apps like follows:
Create a react native app with bottom navigation and webviews as the
content.
Each time the user clicks on a different section of the
navigation, the webview loads a different page of the website into the web
view.
For example the login functionality will be the login page from the website in a webview.
Is this sort of apps allowed to be published in the appStore? My thinking is that the app will not be allowed because the content of the pages can be changed!
No, you are not allowed to wrap a web app in a WebView and release it apple app store (btw: Google Play may reject your app too eventually).
you can make this if the web app is a small part of your whole app (for example: some food delivery apps use a WebView for chat with support, which is totally acceptable)
4.2 Minimum Functionality
Your app should include features, content, and UI that elevate it beyond a repackaged website. If your app is not particularly useful, unique, or “app-like,” it doesn’t belong on the App Store. If your App doesn’t provide some sort of lasting entertainment value or adequate utility, it may not be accepted. Apps that are simply a song or movie should be submitted to the iTunes Store. Apps that are simply a book or game guide should be submitted to the Apple Books Store.
you may get this rejection letter:
If you develop such an app you will get the following feedback from apple:
We found that the experience your app provides is not sufficiently different from a web browsing experience, as it would be by incorporating native iOS functionality.
While your app content may differ from your web site or other existing sites, the experience it provides does not differ significantly from the general experience of using Safari, as required by the App Store Review Guidelines.
You may wish to provide convenient access to a web property for a select or niche group of users - and may enhance that experience with features such as Push Notifications. However, such apps do not include enough native iOS functionality to be appropriate for the App Store. As an alternative, you may wish to provide instructions to your users on how to create a Safari web clip to add to their iOS device Home Screen. Or, if you would like to share the app with a select group of users, we recommend the Ad Hoc distribution method. See the iOS Provisioning Portal for details on Ad Hoc Distribution.
We encourage you to review your app concept and evaluate whether you can incorporate additional features to enhance the user experience.
As apple guidelines says that:
4.2 Minimum Functionality
Your app should include features, content, and UI that elevate it beyond a repackaged website. If your app is not particularly useful, unique, or “app-like,” it doesn’t belong on the App Store. If your App doesn't provide some sort of lasting entertainment value, or is just plain creepy, it may not be accepted. Apps that are simply a song or movie should be submitted to the iTunes Store. Apps that are simply a book or game guide should be submitted to the iBooks Store.
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I'm developing iOS application for my customer. At final point he asked me to share "preview" of an app via link before he could pay me for it. How do I do that?
How do I show my iOS app to someone, is there any other way aside from uploading it to AppStore and therefore making it public and needing developer account (I don't have at the moment)?
If I upload an app to AppStore, is it possible for my customer to "steal" and save it (through installing to jailbroken device for example and copying app with file manager), I suppose this is how users of jailbroken devices download and install paid apps for free using torrents?
What is the common practice of doing this, I mean demonstrating app in development to customer? On my own device? Bringing laptop with Xcode installed and using customer's device?
1 - How do I show my iOS app to someone, is there any other way aside from uploading it to AppStore and therefore making it public and needing developer account (I don't have at the moment)?
The recommended method is to use testflight or Diawi if you can get an account from client?
If not, then you are limited to very few options, either arrange a physical meeting and demonstrate the app to the client, or make a video call and share the screen with the client while on call.
2 - If I upload an app to AppStore, is it possible for my customer to "steal" and save it (through installing to jailbroken device for example and copying app with file manager), I suppose this is how users of jailbroken devices download and install paid apps for free using torrents?
Though i didn't get what you are asking here, but let me make things clear on what i understand. Customer won't be able to steal the app, it will be downloaded from the AppStore using TestFlight. And what's he going to do with the app ? you have the source code, so i guess don't worry on this.
3 - What is the common practice of doing this, I mean demonstrating app in development to customer? On my own device? Bringing laptop with Xcode installed and using customer's device?
As already mentioned in point 1, you can not install the application to any non jailbroken device untill you have the Apple development account. Once you have it you can create the ipa file and distribute it using any distribution services, like Apple's own Testflight or Diawi.
I have my enterprise application (intranet web application) released long back. I also have an iPhone app on AppStore to provide some essential web application functionalities on mobile.
This iPhone app runs against the webapis exposed by this web application and is strongly dependent on it.
I have recently released a new version of my web application which is substantially different from the previous version (technically) and is a major release.
Although it caters to the same business functionality.
When I say a major release I mean the entities, signalR version etc are totally incompatible with the previous one.
Now I have to release a mobile app similar to the one I already have on AppStore but running against the new webapis exposed by the new version of webapplication.
I have to keep on supporting Clients using both of the versions of my enterprise application and cannot have a single iPhone app catering to both due to the strong incompatibility between the two versions of the webapplication.
But going through the Apple Developer site I found below
App Store Review Guidelines
2.20 Developers "spamming" the App Store with many versions of similar apps will be removed from the iOS Developer Program
I am really confused in releasing the new app which is similar to the previous one but
Differs substantially in code base
Has a different App Icon, AppName and AppID offcourse.
Is not intended for spamming but for business continuity.
Please help me as I am clueless on this.
Note: I have already gone through all the related posts on publishing similar iOS Apps but somehow didn't receive any inputs on this specific case.
While it would be preferable from an OOP point of view - if the UI and UX of both apps are the same - to allow the app's user (or the app itself) to select the correct data provider w.r.t. your web application's version, e.g. have interchangeable implementations that yield the same results depending on the backend, your approach might not be considered 'spamming' the store.
That guideline is intended to hold back developers just changing assets and names of apps (mostly games) and release basically the same codebase 100 times, maximizing efficiency and getting promoted as 'new app' regulary.
Seeing as you already made the conceptually bad decission to develop two different apps, submit both (or seeing as the old one might already be in the store, the new one) and see what review says; there's no harm in trying.
From the Dropbox API doc:
Use a single app key for each distinct app
If you build multiple apps, use one and exactly one key for each app
you make. This makes it much easier for us to debug issues when they
arise. That said, if you're just building the same app for different
platforms (for example, iOS and Android), you can use the same key.
It sounds like multiple-apps-single-key only makes it harder to debug. Does anyone successfully deploy multiple iOS apps with a single app key?
There are a few different scenarios mentioned in the Dropbox Platform developer guide you're quoting from, and it's a bit unclear which really applies to your question. To enumerate everything:
"multiple different apps (on the same platform)" e.g.:
MyCoolTaskApp for iOS
MyCoolTimerApp for iOS
In this case, you need to register different apps with the Dropbox API, which means using a different key in each (since they are different logical apps). Also, this way, users will see the different app names when they look at their linked apps list in their account.
"same app for different platforms" e.g.:
MyCoolTaskApp for iOS
MyCoolTaskApp for Android
In this case, you shouldn't register multiple apps with the Dropbox API, and you should use the same key in each (since it is the same logical app.)
"multiple versions of the same app (on the same platform)" e.g.:
MyCoolTaskApp for iOS Lite
MyCoolTaskApp for iOS Pro
In this case, you shouldn't register multiple apps with the Dropbox API, but due to a technical detail there would be a problem with trying to use a single app key in both, as noted under Can multiple versions of my app (e.g., free and paid) use the same app folder on iOS or Android? in the Dropbox Developer support FAQ. In this case, you should contact Dropbox Developer support for help with getting this set up correctly.
To answer your question overall though, each of these scenarios above have been successfully deployed by various developers, but you shouldn't deploy multiple different apps with the same key.
This question already has answers here:
Closed 10 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
Does Apple reject “mobile web shell” applications?
i am wondering if it is possible to make a mobile webpage and than making a IOS app in xcode just having a full screen browser view loading the mobile webpage.
I heard someone saying that apple does not allow apps that one includes a webpage, is this true?
Yes this is true. http://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html
2.12 Apps that are not very useful, are simply web sites bundled as apps, or do not provide any lasting entertainment value may be
rejected
Yes, your application will most likely be reject for this.
I recommend taking your existing files and using something like http://phonegap.com/ and deploy your web application to multiple stores. This works because your assets are baked into the application.