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Is there a concise guide to signing and distributing apps over the air for iOS? We have an extremely simple app to be distributed in-house to five or six users. Not going to get a $10000 MDM solution.

Apple's documentation is absolutely incomprehensible.

Sorry, been futzing with this for two days.

We have an iOS app. I can install it on my phone for debugging using xcode. Runs perfectly.

We loaded the plist, ipa, and icons onto an IIS server. The IIS Server is secured using an SSL cert. You have to log in, and then click on a link to be taken to the page with the download link. So even getting to the link means you have authenticated.

All the links in the plist file are https links.

I can manually type the https address for the plist file and I get an XML file in Chrome or Safari from my PC, my Mac, or my iPhone.

If a person hits the link on an iPhone, "cannot connect to server www.example.com". In the iPhone console, I see the error message SSErrorDomain Code=2 cannot log into iTunes.

Driving me crazy. As best as I can tell, the itms prefix is not using the https link, but how to tell?

Kenster
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Mark Jackson
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  • this is IOS 8.2, using xcode 6.2 – Mark Jackson Mar 27 '15 at 15:48
  • I deeply empathize with you. I'm still waiting on the docs for iOS frameworks! – Vatsal Manot Mar 27 '15 at 19:03
  • The information you posted in an "answer" should actually have been added to your question. However, have you set the MIME types on IIS? See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8881609/ios-distribution-parameters-in-itms-services-protocol-link-for-plist. Also: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25772664/enterprise-app-update-distribution-on-ios-8, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26536018/ios-8-1-enterprise-distribution. –  Mar 27 '15 at 19:17
  • We did set the correct MIME types as per Apple's docs, text/xml for the plist and application/octet for the ipa – Mark Jackson Mar 27 '15 at 20:59

2 Answers2

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For in-house distribution (outside the App Store), you need to have an enterprise developer account, and sign the app with an Ad Hoc Provisioning profile.

If you don't have an enterprise account, you'll have to specify a list of devices when creating the provisioning profile (not recommended).

You could then host the app on a web server, and have the users download it through Safari.

Matteo Pacini
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  • We have an account and the app is signed with our distribution certificate. We are trying to distribute it OTA from an IIS site. Getting the SSErrorDomain Code=2 which appears to be a safari error relating to https, although to even get to the download link requires you to log into and SSL secured website (SSL cert is from GoDaddy, not self signed). If I manually type in the url of the plist file Safari pulls it up as an XML file which is to be expected. – Mark Jackson Mar 27 '15 at 18:14
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Got it to work. Praise the Lord.

I moved the ~/app directory from a server that required authentication to one that does not but only holds the app and nothing else. The server is secured by a SSL certificate issued by GoDaddy so it's not self signed.

I think that Apple was trying to come back to the site somehow to check something and the authentication/redirection was blowing that up.

I also edited the plist and index.html files manually removing all white space (tabs & spaces) which had been inserted.

Gonna test it on a wider audience now.

Mark Jackson
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  • This isn't an answer, and I recommend immediate deletion if you don't want to get down voted. You're new to SO and that's okay; what you should do is edit your question add this text to the body. Good luck :) – Vatsal Manot Mar 27 '15 at 19:06