iOS App Distribution

There are several ways to develop for iOS, all of which involve having some sort of program attached to your Apple ID.

You can develop for free with just your Apple ID. However, you only get access to Xcode, Xcode beta releases, On device testing, Apple Developer forums, and bug reporting with Feedback Assistant. With this type of account, you can’t publish your app to the App Store.

If you are new to app development, a good strategy is to develop your app using your regular Apple account and when your app is tested and ready for distribution, then you should sign up as an apple developer.

To publish an app on Apple’s App store, you need to enroll in the Apple Developer Program.

When enrolling in the program, you can enroll as an individual and for an organization. For enrolling as an individual, you need to enable two factor authentication for your apple account as well as provide some personal information. There is a $99/year fee, and you can distribute your app to the App Store.

As an organization, you need some additional requirements such as a D-U-N-S number, a legal entity status and some other requirements. For more information, check out the enrollment requirements.

https://developer.apple.com/programs/enroll/

For organizations there is also an Enterprise program that costs $299 per year, but only allows for in-house deployments of the apps you develop. There is no deployment to the App Store.

With those different programs defined, let’s hit the highlights of signing up for a developer account.

This will assume you have an existing AppleID, which you’ll use to establish a developer account.

Demo

Go to developer.apple.com and click account in the upper right hand section of the menu.

As an individual account holder, you’ll need to enable two factor authentication. You should already have this in place, but if not, you can go to appleid.apple.com and set it up for your Apple ID. Mine was already setup, so I was prompted for the authentication code when logging in.

If you have never logged into the developer portal with this AppleID before, you will have to review the program agreement. Do so, and if you agree to the terms, check the agreement checkbox. Of course, you can’t create a developer account until you’ve accepted the terms.

Then click the submit button. At this point, you will have a basic developer account. You can download Xcode, test out your app on a limited amount of devices, and have access to a small amount of features.

To distribute your apps, you need to join the Apple Developer Program. Click the Enroll button.

On the following page, click continue enrollment on the web.

Now, provide your personal information and press the continue button. The next page asks your entity type. In my case, I’m registering as an individual. You also have other registration options. Make sure to check the documentation.

Once selected, click the continue button. Finally, you’ll need to accept another developer agreement and then you’ll need to confirm your membership. You will have the opportunity to automatically renew.

At the bottom of this page, you can click purchase to fill out your payment information. I won’t be doing that here, but once you do that and click enroll, you’ll join the Apple Developer Program. And that’s it. You’ll receive a couple of emails confirming your enrollment. And with that, we’re off to the races. The next thing for us to do is to setup certificates which we’ll cover in the next episode.