Mac App Store possibility to allow free download of paid app

Question

I am having an application which I will be putting into the Mac App Store soon. It will be a paid application.

It is my first app I'm transmitting, so please excuse my lack of knowledge so far. I have some guys that helped me a lot during the development with testing and stuff.

As some kind of reward we arranged that each of them will get his version of the app for free. The thing is that I did not think of code signing and security stuff in the beginning and now I'm having a bit of a dilemma. I could of course give them a non-code-signed version of the app, but I do not want to have another development branch for these versions in case of future updates.

Is there any possibility for them to download the app from the App Store legally with some kind of "voucher"?

Answer 1

For each version of your app that you submit to the app store, you can generate 50 promo codes, which can be redeemed in iTunes

Note: promo codes expire after 30 days. I usually only generate 10 at a time, keep them safely stored in a text file with the date of generation, and delete them after sending to an individual.

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To create promo codes:

1) In iTunes Connect, click "Manage your Applications"

2) Click the app

3) Click "View Details"

4) Click "Promo Codes"

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For my Mac store app, I only have Release builds code signed (and sandboxed as well). Debug builds are not code signed / not sandboxed and have a "Beta" attached to the bundle ID (thus avoiding issues with non-sandbox and sandbox versions of the same bundle ID). I can then quickly give out betas to testers.