Distribute App to multiple iPads without App Store

Question

I have built an app for a client that would like to run the app on multiple iPads. Is it possible to do this without distributing through the App Store? Can I use Apple Configurator from the Mac App Store or distribute through the Xcode Server?

Answer 1

You can use TestFlight.

Details: https://developer.apple.com/testflight/

Answer 2

You can use Apple configurator or MDM if you have enterprise certificate to create in-house apps or your provisioning profile contains all the UDID's of target devices you want distribute to. You may find useful my answer to the similar question.

tl;dr: it's better to use HockeyApp or Fabric. Alternatively you may use Testflight.

Answer 3

1. Just go to Xcode and export the app (Product -> Archive -> Export), and follow the steps to save the .ipa file.
2. Create a file named app.plist (see this).

3. Create a index.html file with this content:

   <a href="itms-services://?action=download-manifest&amp;url=https://www.example.com/app.plist">click this link to install</a>

4. Upload these three files to your server (note that the URL must be HTTPS, not HTTP) and clicking on the link should download your app.

Note that you must select a Distribution Code Signing Identity and Distribution Provisioning Profile in Step 1. Also, the UDID of the iPads need to be included in the distribution provisioning profile.