Why not use development tools instead of ad hoc?

Question

I got the impression that when you use the development profile to build the application, only the specified developers can deploy this assembly to the phone.

But I just deployed an assembly that uses the development profile for the phone using Xcode Organizer, although I am not one of the current developers of this profile. One of my colleagues, who doesn't even have Xcode installed, did the same with his phone using iTunes.

In this case, why not use a development training profile to distribute your application, for example. is your QA team instead of ad hoc distribution?

EDIT: Before answering, carefully read the part in bold. I do not ask the basic question "how does it work." I created a lot of development, ad hoc, and application builds, and now I find that I seem to have made some wrong assumptions.

Answer 1

There is one situation where you need an Ad Hoc profile and when you want to test Push notifications.

If you are testing Push notifications in the Provisioning Profile, your push notifications must be sent using a development release notification certificate for your SSL connections to the Apple sandbox APNS server.

If you want to test Push notifications using your Production Notification Certificate and live APNS servers, you will have to deploy the application to the device using the distribution certificate and the special Provisioning Profile (which includes the execution of access rights. Delay, which you usually can skip if you use only Provisioning profiles for developers).

Also note that when deploying using the Ad Hoc profile, the token of your device will be different from the one you use when using the development profile. It is also the recommended way to test APN because there are no end changes that need to be made between the Ad Hoc build and the final deployment to the AppStore.

Answer 2

Ad-Hoc is not for developers, but for testers. Who does not have iPhone SDK / Xcode, only iTunes.

(Answer: you can install an ad-hoc application without a developer certificate, and you cannot do this with a development application)

Answer 3

Method 1: Install with Xcode

The Provisioning Development profile requires you to run the application (natively) from Xcode.

This has the side effect of marking the device as being used for development, but also requires connecting the iPhone / iPod Touch to the Xcode machine. After starting the application from Xcode, the application is installed on the device, and you no longer need to connect to the computer to launch it. (For now, you do not want to update the application.)

Method 2: Install from iTunes

The Ad-Hoc pre-access profile allows you to attach the application to everyone and let them install it themselves using iTunes. You send them:

• application and
• Special Provisioning Profile

They select these two and drag them to iTunes. Then sync.

Later, you can only provide them with an updated version of the application (without the Ad-Hoc Provisioning Profile, since they already installed it on their device), and they can drag the new application onto the iTunes icon to install the new version.

One limitation for Ad-Hoc distribution is that you need to enter each device identifier in the iPhone development portal. And there is a limit of 100 device identifiers per year (you cannot delete all identifiers until the beginning of next year - add them only). The 100-ID limit will not be an obstacle for most developers, just keep in mind that you need to get the device ID ahead of time before creating an Ad-Hoc Provisioning Profile to send to the person you want to install the application on.