modify who has access to OTA app

Question

I am developing many apps for the iPad. We have many testers for development, but I would like to only allow access to certain testers to certain apps. I have a development build hidden away on my website the my testers access through their iPads. What I would like to know is if setting up my provisioning profile to allow for their devices allows them to download and test the apps. If so is there a way that I can build certain apps with only certain testers on it. I don't want to keep removing device IDs from the profile because I know that it would just waste the number of users I can assign.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

If you're asking only about the tools provided by Apple's provisioning system, then yes, you can specify exactly which devices can run each app that you develop. And each app can have a potentially different set of (up to 100) devices that are allowed to run it.

You just have to create separate provisioning profiles for each app. And when you create the provisioning profiles for those apps in the iOS Developer Portal, you have to create either a Development provisioning profile, or a Distribution provisioning profile with the Ad Hoc distribution method.

Once you've made an Ad Hoc provisioning profile (or a Development one), its settings allow you to choose (via simple check boxes) the devices that you want to allow to run that app. And each separate provisioning profile has its own set of check boxes that can be different from the others.

Then in Xcode, change your projects' settings so that the apps are built with different profiles.

Side note: As far as I know, there is no way to convert an existing provisioning profile from "In House" to "Ad Hoc". So you may need to create a new provisioning profile if your current one is "In House". You CAN convert from "Ad Hoc" to "In House", oddly enough.

Side note #2: You are subject to the limitation that your Apple Developer account can only have a total of 100 devices associated with it (each specified by its UDID). But I'd guess that for basic testing like you're describing, this shouldn't be a problem.

Answer 2

You should try https://testflightapp.com/ this is used for beta testing.

When you upload a build to Testflight, you can change the permission who can use the app.

Maybe this helps you a bit.