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Please forgive the noob question.

I've been developing this little app (with Unity) for some time. The development profile expires every 90 days. That's life.

Now I want to take it to the 'next' level, which is 'actual deployment'. Here's the catch: I don't really want to sell this in the App Store. It's a very specific app for a very specific target audience (a particular company). It's not a game or anything anyone else would find fun or useful, it pertains only to this one company's business.

This is my first iPhone app, so I don't know, is there a different kind of cert or profile or something I should be using? Or can I 'publish' things without Apple needing to care? If it does have to go through Apple, is there a category of app like "not porn, not game, not harmful, just some utility, please let some people get it and use it"?

Dave
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What you probably need is an Enterprise account for the business to which you're selling (you can sign up here: http://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/enterprise/). With an Enterprise account, you can distribute in-house apps over the air to members of the organization. That's the only officially-sanctioned way to get "permanent" apps onto a phone without the app store.

Amanda Mitchell
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  • There is an expiration date 1 year from day you have created the provisioning profile using Enterprise account which is same as individual dev adhoc distribution profile. Distribution profile created using enterprise account can be installed on any device(there is no 100 devices limit )... :) – 0x8badf00d Jan 18 '11 at 01:28
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    If that's the only real difference, the number of users, I'll go with ad-hoc, as this company is smaller than that. – Dave Jan 18 '11 at 22:09
  • There may also be legal/licensing issues with long-term ad-hoc distribution (IANAL, and I've not read the license agreement closely, either). I've heard of developers getting banned from Apple's program for similar things, so you might want to talk to a lawyer before making the decision. – Amanda Mitchell Jan 18 '11 at 22:50
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Hope this helps!! http://adeem.me/blog/2009/04/24/tutorial-list-guideline-for-building-ad-hoc-application-for-iphone/

0x8badf00d
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    Nice, thanks! So 'ad-hoc' is a profile that lets up to 100 users use my app, without the app store, for as long as they want (no expiration)!? That sounds perfect. – Dave Jan 17 '11 at 23:46
  • There is an expiration, 1 year from date you have created I guess !! – 0x8badf00d Jan 17 '11 at 23:49
  • OH, not so good. I'd read about the original expiration for development being one year, scaled back to 90 days. The problems is, I was hired to make this app. Now it's done. So I need to find other work, and they want their product. I don't know they want to figure out how to do this themselves, and I don't think I'll be available in a year to renew this for them. – Dave Jan 18 '11 at 00:01
  • In this case, it's not your responsibility. You've done your job, just document the procedures for them and let them hire somebody else in a year. – ABCD Jan 18 '11 at 00:28
  • I could call it 'job security' heh heh ;) – Dave Jan 18 '11 at 00:43
  • You should also tell them to get their own dev account, rather than adding their devices to yours.. move responsibility (and the cost of the account) to them. And of course, in a year, if they need your help, your hourly rate has doubled. Win. – nikkumang May 05 '11 at 08:37
  • To avoid the one-year timeout I would implement a login for the app (if necessary) and put it in the app-store. – ader Jan 10 '12 at 17:09
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I've seen people selling provisions with ad hoc binaries. Apple doesn't like that though, but it does circumvent their cut. They might revoke your developing rights. Up to you.

Ken
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    This is directly against the terms of Apple's developer agreement, and will get you booted out of the program if they catch you at it. People abusing this are the reason why we have such tight restrictions on device IDs for ad hoc distribution right now. – Brad Larson Oct 19 '11 at 17:50