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According to this link in the section "In-house apps | Providing updated apps", I should be able to just distribute a new .mobileprovision file instead of forcing users to install a new version of the app:

For users who already have the app, you may want to time your next released version so that it includes the new provisioning profile. If not, you can distribute just the new .mobileprovision file so users won’t have to install the app again. The new provisioning profile will override the one that’s already in the app archive.

How is that even possible? Isn't the distribution profile necessary for compiling/singing the app? I would like the convenience of just being able to distribute a new certificate, but I'm very skeptical this can even work. Does anyone know for sure? Or am I mis-interpreting this wording? If not, how can I make this work?

Matt Long
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  • It will be sufficient if the bundle identifier of your app and provisioning profile are the same. Testflight is doing the same for ad-hoc distributed apps - they will let you upload an updated provisioning profile which will replace the one included in the latest build. Users will need to reinstall the app, though, but that's propably just because they didn't bother to offer the profiles as a seperate download. – Toastor Jan 22 '13 at 10:18

2 Answers2

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Apple said Provisioning profiles can be installed and managed using MDM, downloaded and installed by users from a secure website that you provide, or distributed to users as an email attachment to open and install.

So you can distribute only mobile provision profile and test the things.

One thing I observed that In case of Enterprise Distribution profile Device udid does not need to add in portal. The ipa file will install across all devices. It happens in case of Enterprise developer profile cases.

NSCry
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For Managing Updates Apple has said that:  "In-house apps that are distributed internally aren’t automatically updated. You’ll need to notify employees of the update and instruct them to install the app. If the application identifier assigned to the app in Xcode is unaltered, it will recognize the app as an existing app and install the update while retaining locally stored app data or preferences. For greater convenience, consider developing a function within the app that contacts the server for updates at runtime."

So I am guessing to send the users a push notification which would notify them about the update and ask them to install, once the click ok you can redirect them to your server where the app is hosted and they can install from there

Geet
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