Distribute App Outside the Mac App Store

Question

I'm a newbie in OSX Development. I built an application in which will be distributed outside the Mac App Store. I have all the other certificates and keys working except for the Developer ID (App and Installer) for production.

I know that this may sound stupid, but for what it's worth, I just wanna make sure. Will my app still be considered Developer ID - signed if I exported it as a Mac Installer Package instead of selecting Export Developer ID-signed Application, when I install it to its destination devices? Will it be successfully installed or be rejected with GateKeeper-enabled devices?

I have been scratching my head for this since for some weird reason, I cannot add a new Distribution Developer-ID from the Dev Center. I was able to add a Developer ID earlier this week however, I ran into some issues with my private keys. As per suggested by Apple and many other developers, I revoked all the Developer IDs and private keys to start fresh. The problem now is that I can't add any new Developer ID (Distribution). I cannot add in both Dev Center and by requesting through Xcode 5.0.1. I'm stuck.

I have submitted a Bug Report to Apple, but who knows when they'll be able to resolve it. So now, temporarily, since I don't have any choice (I guess), I'll use the Mac Installer Package, but the question is, will it work?

Any help would be very, very much appreciated.

Accidence

I just found computerworld.com/article/3403011/… right after adding the bounty. – Stood

Answer 1

I've done this recently and have created a third Xcode project configuration to Debug and Release called Archive, which is a copy of Release except the app is signed using the Mac App Distribution / Third Party Mac App Developer and, confusingly there is a third name used for this same certificate.

I then changed the Archive scheme to use the Archive configuration to build.

Before doing this I had errors on some Macs when signing with my Developer ID, in some cases they claimed the app was corrupted, and in other cases I got gatekeeper blocking the app, forcing me to override it in System Preferences > Security & Privacy.

I personally use xcodebuild (from Jenkins) to build the app for distribution to testers, which I package in a .dmg so they only need to drag it to /Applications or ~/Applications and I do all that using a script within the Jenkins configuration. Your experience may differ to mine if you are using the Xcode app instead.

Baisden

Hi. Thanks for your response. Does the xcodebuild from Jenkins support OSX 10.9 with Xcode 5? Also, I'd like to know more about the code signing point of view on this. – Accidence