Review your enterprise app to apple. is it required?

10
votes

I have developed an enterprise app and its ready to use for my client.

My company bought an account and provides me with the credentials. So i created the ad-hoc distribution profile to distribute the app to my client's testing team during development using testflight.

But as i read somewhere, the account type iOS developer program can not distribute the app to any one,

If you want to distribute your app, you need to enroll for iOS developer [enterprise] program account. But that was not in my case, I was able to distribute my app to the client using the iOS developer program account.

I know, if you want to submit your app to the app store, you need to have an iOS developer program and,

iOS Developer Enterprise Program only allows you to distribute your applications to employees or members of your organization through Ad Hoc distribution.

Now my doubt is,

Is it really mandatory to submit our app to the apple for review to ensure that our app is free of explicit OR else we can use it without review? Why do we need an approval from apple when we are not submitting to app store. The client is telling they just want to get approval then they can sell it within In-House or B2B use.

Because my client asked me to submit our app to apple for just review, but do not want to put on app store. Once they approved, then they will distribute by using ad-hoc distribution profile.

Thanks.

3
iosiphoneios5app-store
You will only be able to distribute your ad hoc to 100 users at most and the profile will expire every 90 days and your client won't be able to launch. You can either distribute to your client through the B2B store which will require a review or, if your client is large enough, they can get an enterprise account and distribute through that without review. - Jason Coco
Thanks Jason for commenting out, yeah i know we can add up to 100 devices and profile expire every 90 days. I have not much idea about B2B (I will go through the docs on that). Yeah my client can get any thing, and they can get an enterprise account. But using an enterprise account [ do we need to put for review our app? ] and again I feel enterprise account and B2B are most likely same except that other can not see your app unike B2B app store. - Praveen-K
Praveen: One thing about enterprise builds: The whole distribution, update and provisioning infrastructure that the AppStore provides for apps, should be handled by the enterprise build developer. Which als means that if the ipa goes out in the wild, there's no stopping it from being installed by an unauthorized person (unless you gate it on the client or server side in some way) - Nitin Alabur

3 Answers

16
votes

You dont need to submit an enterprise app to the app store for review.

Your client's request is weird. It doesn't make sense. You can tell your client that Apple does not review enterprise apps.

Update: your doubt:

Is it really mandatory to submit our app to the apple for review to ensure that our app is free of explicit OR else we can use it without review?

Answer: NO. Its not mandatory

Why do we need an approval from apple when we are not submitting to app store.

Answer: You dont need an approval.

Now, there is a case where your client's request will fail for sure: Assuming (for the sake of explanation) this app is a porn video viewer app, it'd never be approved by the Apple App Store reviewer. And if the enterprise build deploy is contingent upon AppStore approval, even that wouldn't happen (since the client is adamant)

Note: Enterprise accounts are not meant to circumvent Apple's pay wall. i.e., you should not distribute the app outside your organization.

Hope this answers your question. (if it didn't feel free to add a more specific question to the original post.)

3rd Update: FYI Enterprise Developer account are not easy to obtain. If Apple Developer Center thinks your client is shady, they may have to manage with the regular developer account. The question you are asking has no credible sources for answers because no one would insist on doing something like this.

11
votes

Is it really mandatory to submit our app to the apple for review to ensure that our app is free of explicit OR else we can use it without review? Why do we need an approval from apple when we are not submitting to app store. The client is telling they just want to get approval then they can sell it within In-House or B2B use.

You do not need approval, once you are enrolled on the enterprise scheme you will not need to get approval from apple for any applications created as an enterprise application.

However if you then want to sell it on the normal app market it will need to be done from a totally separate account and will need approving.

The enterprise license is a way of making sure that rogue apps do not start making the rounds as they do not need to be installed via itunes, they can just be hosted on a website and downloaded directly from there to the device.

I assume your client may be worried that you aren't going to provide a stable, malware free application and would like apple to authorise & test it first, even though it is not going on to the app store so they have peace of mind that if it's good enough for apple its good enough for them. Or that the MD once heard that Apple HAS to authorise it and they are just jumping through hoops for them.

10
votes

Companies that are enrolled in the iOS Developer Enterprise Program (currently $299 / year) do not need to submit apps to Apple for approval or distribution. These companies can host and wirelessly distribute their in-house apps without Apple acting as gatekeeper.

If you are an external contractor who has been hired to code an app, you may need to hand the app over for them to sign with their Enterprise key so that they can then distribute in-house.

It would be (very) unusual for an Enterprise Program member to submit their app to Apple for review because it is unnecessary. And so far as I know there is no option to do this without setting up all the app details in iTunes Connect and pretending you were going to sell the app.

Update 1:

@Praveen-K: What doubt is there? If you want to have Apple "test & approve" your Enterprise app (a really bad idea) then you will need to:

  1. Create a fake Apple store app
  2. Fill in fake info in iTunes Connect
  3. Provide an on-sell date a long way onto the future
  4. Provide all the login info and access to your servers that the real app requires
  5. Assist the Apple app approvers in accessing your own data to get approval
  6. Then, after approval, delete the app from iTunes Connect and the App Store

If this does not answer your question then perhaps you need to make sure your question is very clear.