Ad-Hoc and the Washington Post

This Washington Post article, suggesting that a beta arrangement for App Store developers is right around the corner, just hit the Digg front page. TUAW wants to clarify a few points raised in that article:

The so-called "Beta Program" refers to ad-hoc distribution. This was announced at the SDK keynote and is not a secret. It's a method to distribute apps outside of App Store channels.

The "Beta Program" will not be released in the "next few days." Ad-hoc distribution is already available and working. Developers can create ad-hoc provisions through the iPhone Developer Program site today.

Developers and users need not use the App Store for testing. Ad Hoc distribution goes directly between the developer and the user. The user needs to supply their iPhone's unique device identifier. The developer then sends a specially compiled version of their app along with a mobile provisioning file. Users drop these into iTunes and they're good to sync.

There are several ways to recover UDIDs from iPhones or iPod touch handhelds. In iTunes, open the device Summary tab, tap Serial Number (it changes to "Identifier"), and press Command-C (Mac) or Control-C (Windows). You can then paste the UDID into an email. From the device, you can download Ad Hoc Helper, tap the icon and then address the pre-filled email to a developer.

Developers can take advantage of these techniques for ad-hoc delivery now to accomodate beta testers (and reviewers!), without any beta program established through the iTunes store.

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Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07…

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iPod Family iPhone App Store SDK

This Washington Post article, suggesting that a beta arrangement for App Store developers is right around the corner, just hit the Digg...

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totoro

Very cool tip, Erica!

July 24 2008 at 12:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Ben Shapiro

Do you have to be a paid developer with an apple-signed key? Or could anybody do this?

July 24 2008 at 11:03 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

James

I can tell you it's working on my iPod Touch...

I'm working with a game developer who set me up with a provision file and it allows me to sideload his apps through iTunes without having to wait for AppStore approval etc.

July 24 2008 at 10:17 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Twoworms

I wonder if this will become an avenue for crackers to utilize for piracy of iPhone applications. They come up with a way to reverse engineer or in some other fashion create this specially compiled version of an application. They supply this along with an application that will allow the user to insert their own UDID into a mobile provisioning file and make what whatever further modification needed to the application in an automated fashion. They insert these into iTunes and like the article says: "they are good to sync." I know this is a simplified idea of the normal process and that it normally requires xcode and the applications source code, but it certainly sounds like something they would try to exploit.

- Jerry

July 24 2008 at 10:13 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

millenomi

And I already do make use of it! http://infinite-labs.net/nightlies/.

July 24 2008 at 7:22 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Vince

FOURTH!

July 24 2008 at 2:52 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

jwindmueller

It exists and it is working. I'm one of several folks who are beta testing upcoming revisions of Graffitio (a very cool concept and app, by the way). The developer requested the UDIDs of the testers (I used Erica Sadun's very cool Ad Hoc helper to send mine), and he's sent the beta revision application and provisioning files to us directly to drop into iTunes.

July 24 2008 at 2:04 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Dave

I've tried to use the Ad-Hoc mechanism for distribution, but it fails when syncing to the phone with a bizarre error. App builds and runs fine for the iphone (loaded via xcode).

July 24 2008 at 12:12 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Dave's comment

jwindmueller

Dave, have you tried first deleting the app from both your itunes app directory and the iphone itself *before* dropping the beta revision app and provision file into itunes? This resolved what I think was the same problem some folks had in the beta group I'm in.

Somethings seems to go awry when just overwriting an existing app with the provision file and revision app.

July 24 2008 at 2:09 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Tom W Browning

Craig Hockenberry says no: http://twitter.com/chockenberry/statuses/857480916

July 23 2008 at 10:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Tom W Browning's comment

punkassjim

And he said it almost 10 days ago. Plus, I think he was talking about something a little broader -- doing this little song and dance for more than a handful of people would get annoying REAL quick.

July 23 2008 at 10:51 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply