What is the difference between development and production SSL certificates in iOS?

Question

This is maybe a strange question but it is really confusing me. Why do we have to create a development and a production SSL certificate for push notifications in iOS? What is the difference between the development and the production certificates?

I am developing an iOS app with Push notifications (handled by a self-hosted Parse Server) and when I switch my environment from development to production (with a production certificate), I don't receive the push notifications anymore on my devices. Will it work once I upload this app to the app store (then, it will be in production)? Or can I "test" my production environment to be sure the notifications will work in my app once published on the app store?

Answer 1

Apple uses different servers for sending push notifications to development versions and app store versions of the app. The development version is called Sandbox. The iOS maintains persistent connection to the its push servers depending on whether its development version or production version. Based on which certificate your app is signed (Dev or App Store/Ad Hoc) it will create a persistent connection to the respective push server. Since the two servers are different they will need different SSL certificates to establish a secure connection to the server.

For more info refer:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/technotes/tn2265/_index.html

Answer 2

If you are testing a push notifications in your app that time you easily check through debugging mode for this purpose you need Development SSL certificate. If you uploaded the app into App Store that time you need to add Production SSL certificate (for live app push notifications purpose you want to add production SSl).