Difference: Ad Hoc distribution and Developmental distribution

Question

I am in process of creating my first app and have some confusion over Ad Hoc provisioning profile and Development Provisioning profile. I understand that this question is asked before this but needed some clarification and confirmation.

Looking at previous answers on stackoverflow I assume there are following differences:

1. Ad hoc builds can be installed without iTunes while development builds(.ipa) must be installed from iTunes

2. Debugger cannot be attched to Ad hoc build while development build has debugger

3. Device tokens are different as APNS uses two modes sandbox, production environments depending upon build is Ad hoc or developmental

And I have following questions

1. On many forums it is written that there is limit of 100 users on Ad hoc builds but nothing is mentioned that if developmental builds have such limits. Also these limits of 100 users are per developer profile or per application?

2. Also does only Ad hoc builds require UDIDs of device to get installed on them? what about developmental builds?

   Please see if I have got differences correctly, whether this misses any important difference and any information on questions will be of immense help

Applejack

Answer 1

Expanding on your comments

1. Ad Hoc builds can be distributed and installed though iTunes, the X Code organizer or though the web. One service for managing adhoc builds and testing is Testflight (https://testflightapp.com/) check them out they have lots of resources regarding provision profiles,

2. Normally your distribution builds are optimized with debugging information stripped, so yes you can not debug adhoc & distribution builds in the debugger.

3. Your App ID is linked to APNS, so the certificate you generate is linked to your application. Device tokens on Sandbox and production are different.

To answer your questions

1. for your iOS developer profile you're limited to 100 devices across the entire account. These are shared between applications. 100 devices means that you are allowed to register 100 devices per developer account per year. At the end of the year when you renew your account you can edit this list and reset your device quota.

2. Both ad hoc builds and developer builds require your UDIDs. What happens is that the provision profile (development or adhoc) must match the provision profile that the app was signed against. Under development it's usually easiest to use a wildcard App ID (such as *) but when you are releasing (under ad hoc or app store distribution) you should use the full App ID name such as com.company.appname this is to identify your app under services such as In app purchases or Push notification services

Quarterhour

Thanks a lot recherd...!!!, the time period of 1 year starts from when I created developer profile right? – Applejack

richerd, I am using push notifications so I am using full App ID(Currently using a developmental profile and not ad hoc). Now If I change my product name it and install it via xcode or iTunes it overwrites previous build instead of getting installed as separate one. Cannot I have two builds with same bundle identifier but different names or version numbers that can coexist on one device? – Applejack

you can't have two applications with the same identifier. the application name and version can change but not the identifier. What I do is create two different schemes in Xcode 4, one that builds with a dev identifier and one that builds for the adhoc/distribution identifier. – Quarterhour

thanks richerd, so is there no way that I can have multiple builds with same dev identifier? for example builds with product name myAPP.1.2 and myApp.1.3 with created using development profile? – Applejack

if your using push notifications then no, since the identifier is tied to your application. If you had a push notification come in then the device wouldn't know which app to route it to, which is why you can't install builds with the same identifier. – Quarterhour

If you weren't using push notifications or anything that required the device identifier then you could just use a wildcard App Id on your development profile and rename identifiers as much as you wanted. – Quarterhour

Thanks richerd, got the point..!! last question just to be sure - does situation remains same if Ad hoc (.app) build is used? – Applejack

yup, you can also use your wildcard app Id for a ad hoc distribution profile. But as previously mentioned you won't be able to do push notifications or in app purchases. – Quarterhour

Answer 2

AdHoc distribution allows you to install the IPA on 100 devices which you can distribute for testing mainly. Also apart from those 100 devices, the IPA cannot be installed on any other device. Also, once a UDID has been added to the list of devices, it cannot be edited until the next renewal of the developer account.

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