Creating a selective app on the iphone App Store

Question

I want to put an app on the app store that only members of my club can download.

Does apple support a way to do this?

I can easily make my app's homepage ask for a password to get to the sensitive features, but I'm afraid Apple won't support this because the general public might download my app and find it useless. It will truly only be useful to members of my club.

Will Apple reject the above scenario like I think it might? If so, what are my options?

Answer 1

What Max said is a good answer, except that there are many apps that are intended for specific people. In fact, my app was indeed accepted by Apple and is currently on the App Store. It is password protected and only the 100 or so people who know the password can access the actual application. Apple is okay with this - my app was accepted within a week. But I do agree that if possible ad hoc distribution might be more suitable or easier in some cases.

Answer 2

Ad-hoc distribution is your best bet. It will only allow distribution to devices that have been specified in the provisioning profile.

You can use something like TestFlight to automate this process.

If you submit an app to the app store for public download which will only work for specified people, you will most likely be rejected.