Why do I need an adHoc distribution profile when distributing with a development profile?

Question

My team is developing an application for the iPhone, and we just found that we can distribute an archived version signed with a development profile, and not a distribution profile for testing. We just needed to add device identifiers to our dev profile.

This clearly saved us from having to perform the various steps necessary to distribute ad-hoc, including the license.plist file.

My question is - If we can distribute an application with a dev certificate, then what does a distribution profile for testers need (is not part of the development team)?

Is there a drawback in adding device identifiers to the development profile?

Since the total device limit is 100, what is the advantage of having a separate distribution profile?

Answer 1

I found this really satisfactory answer here:

Why not use development tools instead of ad hoc?

Answer 2

I suspect that because Xcode is hiding some of the complexity of the development profile from you, you think something is going wrong.

Your development profile still has the UUID of all the target devices. And these devices must be prepared for development and actually installed with Xcode. It really isn't that different in terms of customization and limitations, except that Xcode basically does the customization for you.

Another limitation is that the development provisioning profile expires much earlier than the special deployment certificate.

I recommend testflightapp.com, SUPER is an easy way to deploy custom builds for testers.

Answer 3

Well, you can create different advertising profiles for each client, so only this client can install the application.

More topics on the same issue: Why not use development tools instead of ad hoc? Do I have to make a special Provisioning Profile to debug my application on my iPhone?