Best way to handle provisioning profile for in-house distribution for unexperienced users?
We are developing an app for a company that wants to distribute this app in-house to there employees (about 30 to 40 iPads). I am aware, that an ad hoc distribution profile will expire after some months with the standard developer program. What about the enterprise developer program. How long will this provisioning profile will be valid?
The people who will use the app are not really into electronic things and are not located at the head office. It is okay for them to click on a link in an email to download a new profile, but the problem is that an old expired profile will still be on the device then and will block the new provisioning profile. But it is too complicated for them to remove the expired profile manually! (Even if it is not really complicated for most users, it is for them!)
I ran 开发者_如何学Goa lot of times into this problem, that if i did not removed the expired provisioning profile, no app signed with a provisioning profile would open until the expired were removed.
Is there a possibility to renew the provisioning profile without removing the old one manually? Is there a possibility to expand the valid time period for an in-house provisioning profile?
Please advise!
Thank you very much and best regards, zreak
AdHoc profiles are intended for beta testing, so it is expected that the users would have at least some technical background, or that they will have a closer collaboration with a technical person.
On the other hand 'ideologically' expired profiles should not cause troubles as long as you have the new one on your device, however in practice I have also noticed some issues when trying to connect the debugger.
Regarding the enterprise distribution program, yours or the company of your client need to meet some preconditions in order to be able to open such an account. It also costs x3 than the standard account.
So, final answer:
If you are able to go with an enterprise distribution, that would be the right way to go.
Otherwise you would need to manage the adhoc builds from time to time.
Apple has a pretty restrictive policy so whoever has the device will need to remove old profiles manually if they really cause troubles (although I have never experienced some with my adhoc builds)
Regards
Another option, if they are all testers, is to use the a free account at http://TestFlightApp.com . It's a mobile device management cloud service that allows you to more easily distribute the apps and updates to your users with a simple non-enterprise account. Make sure you are in compliance with the Apple agrement, but this system I have found works well and doesn't require really much in the way to tech know how.
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