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We will be developing a free tool for our existing customers. I have no experience with iPhone and Android but as far as I'm aware you can't just put a file online and add a download link to it.

I'm wondering what are the best options to deliver this application to our customers? Should we just place it in App Store and Android Market (even though it might confuse the people who stumble upon the app and have no idea what or who it's for)?

I'm also aware of Apple's Enterprise Program. I'm not sure how it works technically but it sounds like it can be distributed from local network only, or am I wrong? The app should be obtainable online.

Is it possible to put app in App Store/Market without making it searchable & browseable in the app list of the Store/Market but accessible via direct link only?

Thank you for any suggestions.

Kaitnieks
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2 Answers2

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For iPhone you need to use the iOS Enterprise Program to create your private market as long as the devices are not jailbreaked.

For Android you can distribute the installation file (.apk file) over your website. You have to tell the users to check the option "Install apps from unknown sources" (look here) in their preferences.

Paresh Mayani
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Franziskus Karsunke
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  • It seems like Enterprise Program allows distributing apps to organization members and employees but not customers. – Kaitnieks Oct 12 '11 at 12:21
  • It's true that you are only allowed to distributing apps to organization members but it will work for customers. But Apple might close your account if you do. – rckoenes Oct 12 '11 at 12:33
  • We need to do this properly, the organization in question is a bank not some startup. – Kaitnieks Oct 12 '11 at 13:02
  • On iOS you only have these 2 options. Either the appstore or the Enterprise program. This is one of the disadvantages of Apple's policy. If the organization is a bank you can either put the app in the appstore (if the app is for the customer) or the bank has to create an account for the enterprise program (if the app is for the employees). – Franziskus Karsunke Oct 12 '11 at 14:03
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It really sounds like a "mobile web app" is what you're looking for.

There are several toolkits for styling web pages to look and act like an iPhone/Android app.

The user simply navigates to your site, and you can detect if they're browsing from a mobile device and render the page(s) based on that or redirect them to device specific sites.

Users can bookmark your site to create an icon on their home screen.

If your app doesn't depend on a remote connection, you can also just do everything in Javascript and the user can use your app offline.

Nate
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  • Is there any more info about the kind of mobile web app (it's just a web page, I assume?) that can be accessed locally? Does it have local storage? – Kaitnieks Oct 12 '11 at 14:12
  • There are 2 things you might mean by "local storage" - local data storage and local caching of the webapp. Both are addressed in HTML5 - for local data storage there's 'localStorage' (key/value pairs) and 'local database' (tables, SQL queries); local caching of the webapp resources (HTML, CSS, Javascript, image files) is handled through Application Cache/Cache-Manifest. – Nate Oct 12 '11 at 15:31
  • After some research it seems like this indeed wouldn't cause a problem. But I didn't find any info on how to install such application into user's phone with icon and everything. Is there a way? – Kaitnieks Oct 12 '11 at 16:27
  • There's no way to 'auto-install' a web app onto the home screen - it all has to be initiated by the user choosing to 'Bookmark from Homescreen' from their device's web browser. This question - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6162070/jquery-mobile-add-the-home-screen-options - mentions some projects to help the user know what to do. – Nate Oct 12 '11 at 16:34