Using iOS Developer Enterprise Program for beta testing? [closed]

Question

We are considering using the iOS Enterprise Developer Program to better support continuous integration and wireless distribution for our in-house beta testing.

We have an app built that we put distribute in the AppStore using our regular developer program account. But we always have too many people, more than 100, that want access to the beta application. I heard that enterprise accounts get up to 500 devices per year. We also like the idea of using wireless distribution to make it easier to distribute the beta app.

Is this a valid use of an Enterprise account?

For wireless enterprise distribution, do you still need a list of UDIDs built into a provisioning file?

Our hope is that we can setup our continuous integration server to automatically make builds, run our unit tests, and then post the enterprise distribution bundle to our internal server for our enterprise users to download from a web link.

Does this seem doable to those of you that have experience with enterprise accounts?

Answer 1

Not sure if it's what you are looking for, but I was looking at https://testflightapp.com/ this morning which is designed to take the pain out of beta testing.

Answer 2

I sent this question to Apple and received the following response.

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Hello,

Thank you for contacting Apple Developer Support regarding the iOS Developer Program.

In regards to your request, it is important to note that the Enterprise Program is intended specifically for the development of internal applications for use by employees and contractors only. It is not intended to be a work-around for any device limits imposed by the 100 device limit of the iOS Developer Standard Program.

Before you will be able to purchase a membership in the iOS Developer Enterprise Program you will be presented with the terms and conditions of the Program License Agreement. We suggest that you begin an enrollment, and when presented with the Program License Agreement, compare the terms to your business needs and decide at that time if the program would be a good fit for your organization.

I hope that this information is helpful to you. Please let us know if you have any additional questions or need further assistance.

Best Regards,

Joe Carr Apple Developer Support

Answer 3

FYI, you don't need the enterprise account to wirelessly distribute apps any more. You can do it from within XCode using a standard developer account - once you've built and archived an app you can pop into the XCode Organizer, select the version you want to distribute from the archived apps section, and click "Share". You can then build an IPA and .plist for hosting online, and for download by provisioned devices.

This is how we distribute all our own apps to clients for testing, it saves on a lot of troubleshooting! We have it all hooked up to our CI system too, as you're intending to do.