I am facing some issues related with iOS Developer program and iOS Enterprise Program. One of my client ask me to suggest one of them. Please answer my questions related to iOS Enterprise Program-
If i purchase an iOS Enterprise account so when it is available for in-house application distribution?
How many device i have on which i can install my app?
Do i need UDID of all devices?
What if i want to add some new devices?
If it is same Ad-hoc distribution the what is the expiry date of Ad-hoc certificate?
Thanks
As soon as you sign the contracts and make the purchase and Apple verifies all the information, you can create your distribution certificate, provisioning profile and then sign your app with the certificate, and distribute your app with the profile.
There is no limit to the number of devices.
No, you do not need to get the UDID's of the devices for Enterprise distribution.
Just send the app and the distribution provisioning profile to the user who has the new device.
The certificate is used to sign the app - to my knowledge there is not an "ad-hoc" vs. "distribution" certificate.
Hy Rayfleck,
I'm not sure about that..
Reading this post: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Has-anyone-had-experience-iOS-72283.S.52864455
made me realize that:
Enterprise license can do 2 different kind of release:
release for internal distribution
release for a third party distribution
The internal distribution has no limit of devices
The third party distribution is limited to only 100 devices..
Related
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.
I work in an organization which have an Apple enterprise provisioning profile.
We are developing an iOS application that makes use of Apple Push Notifications, and would like to use TestFlight to distribute it to many users in the organizations without having to register their device ids in TestFlight.
Can we use an enterprise wildcard provisioning profile to distribute via TestFlight an application that uses Apple Push Notifications?
Or can we use an explicit provisioning profile to distribute the app via TestFlight without having to register those employees devices in TestFlight beforehand?
Thanks in advance,
Ido
It should work!
What about Enterprise Apps?
If you are registered with Apple's Enterprise Program and are making Enterprise Apps, no worries...TestFlight works with those too. TestFlight fully supports Enterprise Apps and it works much like Ad Hoc apps for distribution. Just upload an Enterprise signed app and distribute to your team and only approved members of your team will have access to the application for installation.
Source: http://help.testflightapp.com/customer/portal/articles/402851-testflight-faq
If you have an Enterprise Distribution profile, there is no need to use testflight any more. You can just put it anywhere on the internet and let users download it.
Registering devices is needed only for development profiles. There are no distribution wildcard profiles.
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.
I'm developing an iOS app as part of our ISV company. We're using Xamarin.iOS, but I hope that shouldn't matter for this question.
Some of our customers that will get the App are using an MDM (AirWatch) to manage devices and install the App on their devices. For development we used the "iOS App Development" together with our devices to debug and test the app.
Now there's time to get the App to our first customer. For that the app must be signed with a Distribution Certificate and bundled with a Distribution Provisioning profile. For these to generate, one has to be enrolled in the "iOS Developer Enterprise program", which is $299/year. Before spending that money, I'd like to make sure I'm doing the right thing.
Several questions here suggest that the customer's company (not we as the ISV) that uses the MDM to provision the devices should enroll in the "iOS Developer Enterprise program" and should provide us (as the ISV company) with a Distribution Certificate and a Distribution Provisioning profile. Here are the questions:
Distributing an enterprise (in-house) iOS app
How to manage Enterprise Distribution certificate expiration?
My guess is that the client has to enroll in the "iOS Developer Enterprise program". And that the client has to provide us with Distribution Certificate and Distribution Provisioning profile.
My question now is: Why is it that the client has to be part of the "iOS Developer Enterprise program"? Every new client also has to enroll in the program. Wouldn't it be easier if we as the ISV would enroll in the program? Are the legal implications why we shouldn't do that?
You can technically distribute using your own license to the client, however this is not strictly the way it was designed to work by Apple.
Best practice is that they should sign up for the Enterprise program and send you the certificate and provisioning profile (or give you access to their Apple Developer portal).
Then they are responsible for distribution and licensing costs.
If you made them part of your Enterprise Program that would only really work if you only plan to work with the one client.
Alternatively you could send them the binaries and they can re sign them on their side.
this is a guide to how to re sign if required:
Re-sign IPA (iPhone)
I am new in iPhone development. I have a little idea about app_store distribution. My questions are
what is the need for ad hoc distribution in ios application distribution?
2)Is any other license needed for ad hoc distribution from Apple?
if anybody knows, please help me. Thanks in advance.
Ad-Hoc Distribution:
Distribution builds of an app, which can be installed on 100 devices designated by the developer on his provisioning portal. The distribution mechanism can be websites, mails or OTA. These type of builds are generally for beta testing or demos.
App-store Distribution:
Distribution builds that are intended for general public(for sale). The distribution mechanism is App store only.
Ad Hoc distribution allows you to share your application with up to 100 iPhone, iPad or iPod touch users, and to distribute your application through email or by posting it to a web site or server.
App Store provisioning profiles do not allow for a distribution built application to be installed on an Apple device. To install your distribution ready application on a device, you must create an Ad Hoc provisioning profile.
App Store distribution allows you to post your application in Apple Store.