My team and I have been contracted by a company to develop our first iPhone Application.
I am wondering how this contractor relationship is best handled. Does the $99 SDK/Dev connection account need to be established under the contractor's name, so that when the application is approved it isn't listed by our company's name, but by their business name?
Essentially is it best-practice to submit the application under the contractor's name or is there an option to define this when you apply?
You get an account and they get an account.
Accounts serve two functions. Access to the development tools and access to the business interface for the company publishing the app.
You sign up once. Each client signs up for their own account for the most important reason. That's where the bank information is to tell where the money goes. :). And contracts and sales data, etc.
The best way for it to work is for you to do development under Wildcarded developer and distribution (ad hoc) code signing keys (your account). You sign for multiple clients with the same keys. Then at the end, you sign and publish with a specific AppStore key (each client's account).
That will allow you to do control development, testing and beta distribution. When development is finished, you zip up the release version signed with their key and they upload it via iTunes Connect under their account.
Bonus section:
This configuration is easy to set up in XCode (once you get over the 24 hours of strangling yourself getting your head around how xcode and the distribution certificates work).
Go to Project->Edit Project Settings->Configurations. Duplicate two new configurations off of the "Release" configuration. Call one "Ad Hoc", the other "AppStore". Set your signing certificates as follows, iPhone Developer for Debug/Release, iPhone Distribution (Ad Hoc) for Ad Hoc, and their iPhone Distribution (AppStore) for "AppStore". Forget you even have a client until the end, then switch to AppStore distribution, build, zip, email, and done.
In practice, it's more complicated than that as you'll need to set up multiple certs/profiles/keys on your machine, but once you're done, it basically runs like this.
I would create the dev account and publish it under the company that will own the app and the source, regardless of who is developing it.
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I am a developer and I am making an app for my client.
I have indie developer account so During testing period I am using client's UDID to build ipa file so they can test on their iOS devices.
Now client will distribute final ipa file into itunes connect.
so What are the different legal solutions for this?
Assume that they have indie developer account too and client is non-technical so they don't want to mess with xcode or source code.
And in future I will do the same for other clients too.
In order to submit an app to iTunesConnect, it has to be signed with a valid distribution certificate and provisioning profile that match the developer account they are submitted to. That means that someone (whether it's you or your client) needs to create an appID, a distribution certificate and a matching app store provisioning profile that you will then use in Xcode to sign the ipa that will be submitted to the store.
Since your client isn't a technical person and you will most likely be able to do that process much quicker and more efficiently than he/she will, the best solution would be for your client to simply give you the credentials to the developer account and for you to perform these steps there. If that's not an option, and your client has a company account (and not a personal account), he/she can give you access to their account by adding you to their development team - that way, you'll still be able to perform the necessary actions on the account, without having the admin's personal credentials.
As for the submission itself, once you have a signed archive, you can either submit it directly via Xcode or you can send the signed ipa to the client, and he/she can submit it via Application Loader from their admin credentials. But, you will still have to sign it with valid certificate/profile from the right developer account.
I hope this makes sense and makes things a bit clearer. Good luck.
I'm sorting through the various Apple docs, but haven't seen it yet.
Here's the deal: I've created a series of apps that are for a service for NPOs. These are hugely popular (albeit in a very small pond), and I have been asked to make customized versions for some of these organizations.
It's a FOSS app, but these outfits can't get iOS programmers to build and release the apps. They are willing to set up App Store accounts, but don't have the geeks on hand.
Due to the way the organization manages its IP, I am not allowed to release branded apps under my app store account. They need to release under theirs.
I don't want to set up an enterprise account for this. I haven't read up on that, but I'll bet that it would not be practical, anyway.
Is there a reasonable way for folks to take apps built on one account, and apply a new provisioning profile, and release it via another account?
Yes a company can take any developer app, sign it with their own certificates, and submit it using their own iOS enrolled team leader ADC account. They can even hire a contractor or temporary employee and legally authorize them to do this work for them.
If you do this type of subcontracting, you might want to get authorization in writing from the CEO, COO or chief legal consul of the company to do so.
you can use a different provisioning profile and deliver the app to the other guys. You can have multiple profiles in your X-Code and select with which one you want to sign the app when you create the archive.
You can either do this yourself by getting access to your client's app store signing certificates, or you can get your clients to use their codesign tool - details on the latter technique can be found on google - here is one example.
Enterprise accounts don't let you release on the App Store.
A typical way of handling this is for them to set up an account and give you the details for the team agent to log in. You then generate a key pair and a certificate signing request in Keychain Access. You log in as the team agent and use the certificate signing request to get a distribution certificate, which you then download and open - this will install into the keychain. Export the key pair and supply this to them so that they aren't screwed if you get hit by a bus or something.
From that point on, it's all stuff you should be used to. Xcode knows which private key to sign the build with because it matches the provisioning profile. It knows which provisioning profile to use because the app ID in the profile matches the app ID in the Info.plist file. Beta testing with ad hoc builds is the same as normal, except you register the UDIDs after logging into their account, not yours. Archives are not tied to your account.
When you submit the app through Xcode, you'll have to supply the team agent login details again. The submission will show up under their developer account, not yours.
Technically speaking, I think it breaks their developer agreement with Apple for them to supply a third-party (you) with their login details. However I don't believe it's possible to delegate all of the privileges necessary to submit an app to anybody other than the team agent, and the parts that can't be delegated aren't easy to explain to a non-technical person. You can script some of it to make it easier, but it's easy for them to get into a mess, so it's usually best if they let you handle it all.
I have an apple developer account using which I have developed an application for one of my clients. Now, the client also has a developer account. Is there anyway, I can create an app ID like com.client.* in the clients developer account and then upload an application's release version using an appID like com.mycompany.applicationname which is created in my developer account.
Or else, there is no option like that??
An app ID is a unique application identifier. Even the exact same source code, built with two different app ID's, would be considered two completely different applications.
In order for you to compile your client's application, you will need to get a copy of their profile using com.client.* and compile the application as com.client.appname.
That would be possible, (as far as I know, apple doesn't check the AppIDs if they are used anywhere yet outside of your program) but might get problems when submitting to the appstore and furthermore, you could not submit with his account, what he probably wants. Here's what we usually do:
1. Create a *. Provising profile for yourself for development purposese.
3. For push notifications, you should be able to create a DEV certfiicate with Appid com.client.appname in your developer program
4. Have your customer invite you into his Program and create the matching provising profile for appstore submission and push notification with this Appid.
You can be in multiple development programs (I'm currently in three different ones..)
We're developing an iPad application for a client, who wishes to distribute the application to only those customers who have purchased the license from him for 'x' number of users. For example, if an university buys the license from him for say 50 users/devices or another company may buy the license from him for 100 users/devices. What would be the best way to distribute such an app. After doing some research iv come across 2 ways for this but each with its own hiccups.
1) Distribute it through the App Store with a standard developer license and authenticate the users of the app. Only if the users are authenticated by the server, would they be able to access and use the application. This allows my client to restrict the users to only those who have obtained licenses form him.
But i have heard that Apple would reject such apps that provide only exclusive access to some users and not to all.
2) The other option is the Enterprise Developer account where he would host the apps on his site and the clients who have obtained licenses only can download it. However, I believe that enterprise applications can only be developed for in-house employees. i.e if he has the enterprise account, the app can only be used for his employees as it would work only for the devices authenticated with the unique DUNS number.
Anyone has any workarounds for this? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.
The client I have just developed an app for has the requirement for users to login to their service before they can use the app. They place the app in the store with a clear indication a login is required. The app is free to download so no one gets caught paying for something they can't use.
We have just submitted the latest app to the store and are waiting for approval*. When submitting we included a full login for the reviewers to test the app with. This was in the review notes and remains confidential. They have an existing app already approved which works the same way.
As part of the app we also included a demo mode with static content bundled with the app which allowed access to all the functionality but only for that very limited set of data.
The client has the Enterprise programme which allowed us to beta test the app with designated users but that was with the usual 100 device limit (with devices able to be removed at renewal time only). Both the individual developer and the company program are allowed the same number of devices but you want to be able to join the clients team as developer so they should go for the Company program. The client will need to be the Agent for the submission and that is fixed as the first account they sign up with. We're trying to change the agent for our company now and it's not something you can do online you have to send Apple a request. They should then add you as a developer for their program. You can be a member or an admin but only they, as the Agent, will get to sign the app for distribution.
I sure hope you aren't correct about rejection because of the login service or I'm going to have a very disappointed client on my hands.
*EDIT: Our application was approved by Apple at the first attempt so there was no problem with this approach.
I developed a iPhone application for my client.
I have my own developer account, so I created the Ad Hoc and App Store Distribution profiles by using my account.
Now the thing is, my client want to submit the app by using his account. He has his own account.
I want to know,
Should I build the app using my distribution profile?
OR
Should I need the distribution profile created using client's account?
Thanks in advance.
All the certs involved for the client's app should be the client's certs. You should even create a separate developer's cert for yourself under the client's account.
These certs not only identify the distributed apps to the technology of the App store but are also the apps financial and legal IDs. In other words, the certs control who gets paid and who gets sued.
Neither you or your clients want the other's certs entangled with their own. If you do entangle the certs, your client might find they can't administer or update their own app and you might find yourself responsible for some future action of the client.
You might even want to go so far as to create a separate user account on your development Mac for each client in order to keep all the certs and profiles cleanly separated. It's a pain but these certs and profiles are the very heart of the App Store system. If the certs and profiles get scrambled it's a big, big deal. As in money, guns and lawyers big deal.
You should create a distribution profile using the client's account.
You can have multiple distribution profile & certificates on your machine at once and select the one you want to use when you build the project.
While you're at it, I would also create a iTunes Connect user for yourself in their account, so that you can still administrate the application and get notifications, etc ...