iOS Enterprise Account: only in-house distribution

Question

Regarding the apple documentation, the enterprise programm allows to distribute apps in-house. How can apple distinguish between in-house users and eg partner companies?

Or is this only a paragraph in the legal agreement, defining in-house distribution to be allowed for company members only?

Answer 1

Apple does not actually check where you are installing your enterprise apps. As the documentation says, you should only distribute them to employee/company devices. In reality there is no way for apple to enforce this.

Answer 2

A bit in late but I guess it could still be interesting for people arriving here so this is what I've found before contacting customer service (after there is their reply).

An interesting article where the legal agreement is analyzed a bit: http://mobiledan.net/2012/09/08/can-ios-enterprise-apps-be-used-by-customers/

(in my opinion the contract is very difficult to understand, also for an English lawyer..)

An official Apple's video about enterprise app distribution: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2014/705/

So I tried to speak with Apple customer service and their answer was:

"Enterprise program's license agreement allows installation of in-house app only on company's devices or devices rented by the company. Personal devices (of employees) or other company's devices are not allowed".

Original Italian answer:

"le condizioni d'utilizzo del programma Enterprise prevedono che solamente i dispositivi di proprietà o noleggiati dall'azienda possano ricevere le app in-house. Dispositivi personali o di altre aziende non sono ammessi".

For sure we moved on the edge for a couple of years and one day bad things started to happen, like app not working, expired distribution profiles, ... I don't know if they can check but for your safety and for the ones of your customers is probably better if you ask them to buy their enterprise license, at least in this way you don't risk the single point of failure.