iOS 9 new feature Free Provisioning (Run your app on a device, just with your Apple ID, without Apple developer membership)

Question

Would like to know about the new feature Free Provisioning introduced in iOS9 & Xcode 7.

How Apple is now achieving that, as before we knew our device ids were enrolled in the profiles and hence it was possible to deploy the app on devices.

Now only with Apple ID how the things in the background are achieved, also is there any restrictions on how many number of devices I can add my build with Free Provisioning.

Any help is greatly appreciated thanks...

Answer 1

1. How it works?

Apple Ref : How to use free provisioning

As stated in above link under Launch Your App on Devices Using Free Provisioning point 6. " Xcode creates a free provisioning profile for you "

Update: Above point 6 is removed from link, but there is no change in the way it works and steps in above link still work!

Profile created in this way is tied to your apple id, when you try to run app on new device that device's UDID gets added in this profile.

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2. How to use free provisioning?

Requirements: Apple ID, XCode 7 or above

Steps:

1. Go to XCode Preference

2. Go to Accounts tab and hit plus "+" button on bottom left to add your Apple ID.

3. After successfully adding Apple ID click on view details on bottom right

4. Click the Create button next to "iOS Development"

   

5. Connect your device and select your device as build destination.

6. In target's general setting,

   a. Set app identifier you want to give to your free profile

   b. set team id as your apple id

   c. If using XCode 7, hit Fix Issue button below provisioning profile warning.

   

   If using XCode 8, there is no Fix Issue button XCode will automatically do this.

   In both cases of XCode versions, Xcode will either create new profile if not found for your apple id or add new device to your existing profile.

7. Run the app, this will install app.

8. Click app icon to start app manually, you will get "Untrusted Developer" dialog. To trust your apple id, Go to iPhone setting > General > Device Management > Select your apple id and click trust.
9. After step 8 you can run and debug app using free provisioning.

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3. What are the Limitations?

I tried to install app with free provisioning and could run/debug app. But there are few catches. Profile created by XCode is bit different than our usual developer profiles

From profile raw file

1. There is new key LocalProvision with value true

   <key>LocalProvision</key>

   <true/>

   Many services like following are not available, See full list of services

   Apple Pay, Game Center, iCloud, In-App Purchasing, Push Notifications, Wallet (Was Passbook)

2. Expires in 7 days (this was changed sometime in May, previously it was 90 days).

   <key>TimeToLive</key>

   <integer>7</integer>

   Old: 90 days New: 7 days

3. Under <key>ProvisionedDevices</key> there is list of devices on which I tried to install app, still unknown maximum number of devices possible, I tried to install on 3 devices which worked successfully.

4. This is not alternative to publishing app for free on app store, you still need to enroll to developer program to publish apps.

5. Testflight based internal / External testing is not possible.

Answer 2

Apple haven't disclosed the thing like, how they are managing on their developer portal. But I think they just removed the restriction of Paid Developer program & rest of the thing kept as it is.

For standard developer Program Apple support 100 device so I think same will apply here.

Refer this link for more info..

Answer 3

Copied from: https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/ios/getting_started/installation/device_provisioning/free-provisioning/

Limitations

Apple has imposed a number of limitations on when and how you can use free provisioning to run your application on an iOS device, ensuring that you can only deploy to your device. These are listed in this section.

Access to iTunes Connect is also limited and therefore services such as publishing to the App Store and TestFlight are unavailable to developers provisioning their applications freely. An Apple Developer Account (Enterprise or Personal) is required to distribute via Ad Hoc and In-House means.

Provisioning Profiles created in this way will expire after three months, Signing Identities after one year. Furthermore, provisioning profiles will only be created with explicit App IDs and so you will need to follow the instructions above for every app that you wish to install.

Provisioning for most application services is also not possible with free provisioning. This includes:

Apple Pay

Game Center

iCloud

In-App Purchasing

Push Notifications

Wallet (Was Passbook)

Answer 4

Some more informations.

You can archive app with free provisioning profile. But You can't export ipa in "XCode 7"

But you can use XCode 5 or Command line "xcodebuild" to export ipa file.

I tried using OTA to install this ipa file. And it's work!

So... If there has a way to add UUID to your account without XCode (REST api calls). You can distribute your app to anyone you want.