ios - Run ipa on device without cable and not with TestFlight?

Question

Is it possible to distribute IPA to device without TestFlight, and not via cable? I have a new MacBook Pro with usb-c and an iPhone. Hard to get company set up TestFlight. Any idea how to test on device?

Answer 1

Yes. Ad-Hoc OTA is the way to go.

On developer.apple.com:

1. navigate to your account & login
2. click Certificates, IDs & Profiles in the side menu on the left
3. on the left, find Devices & click +
4. register multiple devices by uploading a spreadsheet including the UDIDs and names of the devices
5. follow the steps to finalize the registration process

You might need to wait 24 hours; I found, it sometimes takes really long for the changes to take effect.

Inside Xcode:

1. prep: open Xcode settings, accounts, your account and then re-download all the profiles and certificates
2. archive the product
3. open the Organizer window and find the archive you've just created
4. click Distribute App
5. choose Ad-Hoc
6. make sure to have include manifest for OTA installation enabled
7. follow the steps
8. finally, click export and choose a location to save the files

Upload all the files (icons, .plist & .ipa) to your server. Note that the server needs to be https, this is mandatory. If your's isn't, upload it to Dropbox or some other cloud service. If you're using Dropbox, make sure to replace www.dropbox.com with dl.dropboxusercontent.com.

Manifest

1. open the manifest.plist file and insert all the new urls
   • again, for dropbox: replace www.dropbox.com with dl.dropboxusercontent.com
2. upload the manifest plist to a secure server.

Link:

itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url=https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/YourURLHere/manifest.plist