iOS Will Apple allow this?

[sergiobaschi]

My girlfriend is turning 30 and there will be a party in February or March.

She asked me if it would be possible to create an iOS app that the guests can download and use for ordering from the bar, and for sending music related messages to the DJ. Technically it's a very simple app. (I'm not a professional developer, but I've done some apps on my spare time.)

But my concern is that Apple will deny this app, due to its relatively small target group (50-100 people).

What do you think?

 

[dantastic]

Make a html5 app?

 

[robbieduncan]

Just use ad-hoc distribution for that sort of number

 

[Duncan C]

Just use ad-hoc distribution for that sort of number

Apple probably would not approve a throw-away, private app like this for the app store.

I agree with Robbie. Ad hoc distribution would be the way to go.

There is a site called TestFlight that makes it easy to collect UUIDs from your users and deliver apps to them.

Get everybody to sign up to TestFlight in advance, and then you can deliver the app.

Bear in mind that you have 100 test devices for your developer account, and once you use one of those slots, you lose it for the entire year, even if you then delete the device from your list of test devices.

Also bear in mind that what we are talking about is, strictly speaking, a violation of Apple's terms of service for Ad Hoc distribution, and if Apple learned about it and decided to "get their panties in a knot", they could terminate your developer agreement and block you from signing up again. However that seems unlikely. The main thing they don't want developers to do is to use Ad hoc distribution as a way of bypassing the App store and selling apps. Since your application is not collecting money you should be ok. And, you could even justify it as a field test of a party app.

If you ever plan to release apps to the app store then you should keep 20 or so device slots in reserve so you an can actually set up a beta test of your app with outside testers. (So I would limit the party to 70 iPhones or so at most. That should leave you with 10 devices for you and 20 for outside testers)

Doing this as an HTML5 web-app would be simpler.

 

[loon3y]

Apple probably would not approve a throw-away, private app like this for the app store.

I agree with Robbie. Ad hoc distribution would be the way to go.

There is a site called TestFlight that makes it easy to collect UUIDs from your users and deliver apps to them.

Get everybody to sign up to TestFlight in advance, and then you can deliver the app.

Bear in mind that you have 100 test devices for your developer account, and once you use one of those slots, you lose it for the entire year, even if you then delete the device from your list of test devices.

Also bear in mind that what we are talking about is, strictly speaking, a violation of Apple's terms of service for Ad Hoc distribution, and if Apple learned about it and decided to "get their panties in a knot", they could terminate your developer agreement and block you from signing up again. However that seems unlikely. The main thing they don't want developers to do is to use Ad hoc distribution as a way of bypassing the App store and selling apps. Since your application is not collecting money you should be ok. And, you could even justify it as a field test of a party app.

If you ever plan to release apps to the app store then you should keep 20 or so device slots in reserve so you an can actually set up a beta test of your app with outside testers. (So I would limit the party to 70 iPhones or so at most. That should leave you with 10 devices for you and 20 for outside testers)

Doing this as an HTML5 web-app would be simpler.

wow this testflight looks amazing, for the OTA, as long as your device is registered on that developers account, we should have no problem using TestFlight as our main source of OTA/Ad-Hoc Distribution right?


because right now we maintain our OWN OTA websites, which are really a pain in the butt. because each company/customer, needs their own OTA website, so they can download the app that connects to the correct database.



just a question, if this is going to be our main source of OTA, to our customers, can i restrict which apps the team can download?

if so, i would like to make each company/customer into a team, and distribute the app like that,


if not, i was thinking making a test flight account for EACH customer (which may be tedious, but i think logging in and uploading the IPA, is much better than uploading and changing text files and such on our current OTA websites)
but than each account would need to use the same developer account.


if either of these would work, do you think this is an efficient way of distributing? in your opinion?


also thanks for this site, where do you find these things? lol

 

[Duncan C]

Testflight IS amazing, and the base service is free. There are various add-on services that cost money, but the base service is quite useful.

When you set up apps on testflight, you determine which of your testers are invited to install each app. It maintains a separate access list for each app, so yes, you can open different apps to different subsets of your testers.

Be aware that your license agreement with Apple forbids you from using your test device IDs to actually distribute final products to your customers, and if you get caught using them that way your company will likely be banned from the developer program for good, and may face other legal action as well.

wow this testflight looks amazing, for the OTA, as long as your device is registered on that developers account, we should have no problem using TestFlight as our main source of OTA/Ad-Hoc Distribution right?


because right now we maintain our OWN OTA websites, which are really a pain in the butt. because each company/customer, needs their own OTA website, so they can download the app that connects to the correct database.



just a question, if this is going to be our main source of OTA, to our customers, can i restrict which apps the team can download?

if so, i would like to make each company/customer into a team, and distribute the app like that,


if not, i was thinking making a test flight account for EACH customer (which may be tedious, but i think logging in and uploading the IPA, is much better than uploading and changing text files and such on our current OTA websites)
but than each account would need to use the same developer account.


if either of these would work, do you think this is an efficient way of distributing? in your opinion?


also thanks for this site, where do you find these things? lol

 

[loon3y]

Testflight IS amazing, and the base service is free. There are various add-on services that cost money, but the base service is quite useful.

When you set up apps on testflight, you determine which of your testers are invited to install each app. It maintains a separate access list for each app, so yes, you can open different apps to different subsets of your testers.

Be aware that your license agreement with Apple forbids you from using your test device IDs to actually distribute final products to your customers, and if you get caught using them that way your company will likely be banned from the developer program for good, and may face other legal action as well.

oh damn, so it isnt ideal for us to distribute using test flight.

the fact that the OTA distribution is so simple.


so apple wants us to painstakingly maintain websites for OTA instead of using testflight to distribute it conveniently?

because the app we're selling is through Ad-Hoc distribution, when we sell it to companies its used inhouse and is connected to our mainsystem.

 

[Duncan C]

oh damn, so it isnt ideal for us to distribute using test flight.

the fact that the OTA distribution is so simple.


so apple wants us to painstakingly maintain websites for OTA instead of using testflight to distribute it conveniently?

because the app we're selling is through Ad-Hoc distribution, when we sell it to companies its used inhouse and is connected to our mainsystem.

It's not TestFlight that Apple limits, it's using ad hoc builds to distribute production software to end users. You're only supposed to use your test device IDs and ad hoc builds for testing, not release.