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.

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.