IOS Provisioning profile for business distribution

Question

Hi I developed one business app for my customers(SALES PERSONS) it integrate with ERP , this app distributed to many Sales Person iPad's by Developer provisioning profile.

My bad time Developer provisioning profile have one year validity only.. How can I distribute my app to my sales persons iPads with life time provisioning profile.

*This app is not uploaded App store because business purpose only.

Is there any other way to business app distribution methods?

Please share your ideas .. I hope it will help me... Thanks...

Answer 1

If you use the ad hoc provisioning profile distribution, as you did, you meet at least two problems:

• A limited time your users can use the app (the ad hoc provisioning profile has a limited duration)
• A limited number of users can run the distributed app (remember that you can use at maximum 100 devices per year for testing, and from the Apple's point of view your users are just testers)

In general, to achieve what you want with iOS, you have a couple of options, but probably no one of them perfectly fit your needs:

• Registers with the iOS Developer Enterprise Program. In this case you can distribute your app without submitting it to the App Store, but this method works only if your users are employees of your company

• Enrolls in the Volume Purchase Program for Business (VPP Business Guide). In this case you can submit your app, in a restricted number of Countries (United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan), to a limited number of users, through a sort of parallel App Store.

  This procedure is intended for companies that fit the following requirement: big companies (that have a DUNS number) that hire a company that develops a Business app for them (aka marks the app as Business and related to that particular company during the app creation in the iTunes App Store). The app will not be visible in the traditional App Store.

  Maybe this second case can be your case, in case you are realizing the app for a DUNS company. Please consider that in this case the company itself (and not you) establishes who can install the app by sending it to the selected target users in different ways (promo codes, links to the app store,...).

I don't see other options at the moment.

Answer 2

You or your organisation resprectively need an enterprise account. It is a bit more expensive, has higher application criteria and a stronger contract but enables you to do exactly that.

See Apple's docs for details. https://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/enterprise/

Answer 3

Here is a link provided by apple themselves on how to distribute in-house business apps.

http://www.apple.com/business/accelerator/deploy/app-distribution.html

I'm not going to copy everything over cause there is quite a lot, but it basically says you can distribute your apps over a wireless network using a private server and an Enterprise Distribution provisioning profile.

Another link that is from that site is http://help.apple.com/iosdeployment-apps/mac/1.1/#app43ad8905 which gives a walkthrough on how to set this all up.

If you have any questions just ask. I have given a basic summary but I can go into more detail if you don't understand.