On Apr 14, 2012, at 12:28 PM, Apple Xtools List wrote: You do NOT need to have a device plugged in to create an IPA. Just select "iOS DEVICE" and the archive menu will enable. This is in Xcode 4.2 or later.
Jesus Apple, WHY REQUIRE THIS? Why gray it out unless an iOS device is plugged in OR you select iOS Device? Why not have it enabled all the time? You have to be kidding me. Xcode 4.x is not nearly obtuse enough. Also, you can email an IPA. There is nothing that prevents this. It's just a file. The device will need a proper provisioning file installed on it for the app to install.
Not to an iOS device. It's useless once it gets there. I tried that on the very same device I just built to using Xcode 4.2 and iOS 5.0.1. Mail did not know how to handle the enclosure. Neither did Safari if I just put the IPA up on a URL I could access. It is super simple to put the IPA on a web server and have your users just go to the site, install the provision file and install the app.
Please tell me how this is true. Does this require the Enterprise license? Does the Enterprise license always require the manifest pList? Does this work with a non Enterprise license? This matters since I'm on two dev accounts. One with Enterprise and one as a Personal developer.
See, we have a staging server that then copies the file(s) to the prod server on an interval. When a manifest is used, you either have to point the internal URL the download is to be validated against to one or the other, meaning, you have to test on one server, republish the archive, then change the URL, then wait for the push and test on the other. This is the PITA reality when delivering Over The Air with the Enterprise license.
This blows more when your server push from SIT to PROD interval is 2 hours.
So, you say it is super simple. On the iOS device, the download will fail 3/4 of the way through if the code signing or provisioning is wrong and it won't tell you why. Found that out last week.
The pList manifest is the exact approach we use. It's not non trivial since the app has to be recreated each time and the URL it is to be delivered from changes (we drop off in SIT and it gets pushed to PROD).
When creating the IPA, Apple saves the URL from last time, that doesn't help at all. I have to change it every time since we test from SIT first, then from PROD, which have COMPLETELY DIFFERENT URLS.
If Apple allowed (or does allow) more than one URL to validate against when downloading, that would make this much less of a PITA.
The manifest approach blows when you simply want to put a file up on a staged distribution server while your boss is on the other side of the planet.
Here is a good resource on this:
Todd
If it is super simple, then why can't we just put an IPA on an HTTP server with mime types properly configured and have it install on a device without a manifest? Just for testing, why doesn't this work, or isn't allowed?
That would be super simple.
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