iOS Appstore app override enterprise app

3
votes

Our company has both Appstore and Enterprise distribution licence. We are going to make demonstration with current beta version via enterprise licence. Some users going to download enterprise app to test beta release. After appstore publish we want Appstore app override the enterprise beta release which downloaded during the demonstration. So that, people who downloaded beta app can be switch with released version. If we give the same bundle identifier both to enterprise and store app, is this possible? What would happen to the push notification certificates?

2
iosapp-store
you are not allowed to give enterprise signed apps to people outside your organization. apple might revoke the certificate if you do that. – Bastian

2 Answers

7
votes

Unfortunately, you can not have an Enterprise App and an App Store App share the same Bundle Identifier (= AppID). App Store Apps need be provisioned by a profile created in a normal Developer Account. Enterprise In House Apps need to be provisioned by a separate Enterprise Developer Account, as you can not create Enterprise Distribution Profiles in a normal Developer Account and vice versa. Once you set up the AppID in one account, you can not set it up in the other, because an AppID needs to be unique.

Alternatives:

  1. Don't use the Enterprise Account. Use AppStore- and AdHoc-Provisioning (for Beta-Testing) with the normal Developer Account
  2. Try Beta-Testing via Apple's TestFlight. It allows you to distribute Pre-Release versions of your App-Store IPA without the restrictions of AdHoc-Provisioning. You don't need the Enterprise Acc in this setup.
  3. Use separate AppIDs. One for the Enterprise Account. One for the normal Developer Account. That would result in 2 different Apps on a device, once installed.

To simplify your Push Notification setup, you should run with 1. or 2.

1
votes

I just needed to transfer an Enterprise app to the App Store. The requirement was that an App Store installation would replace a previously installed Enterprise app, therefore the Bundle ID needed to be the same. I was successful with the following steps:

  1. Remove App ID from Enterprise Account (developer.apple.com)
  2. Recreate App ID on App Store Account (developer.apple.com)
  3. Create App in iTunes Connect (select App ID from dropdown)

Actually 2. and 3. were a little bit fuzzy. First time I checked Xcode had already created a com-company-app ID, however I wasn't able to create an app in iTC. Afterwards I deleted it, re-created it manually and tried a com.company.* wildcard ID. With neither I was able to create an app in iTC. Removed those again, fiddeled with the settings in Xcode and it created a com-company-app ID again. This time creating an app in iTC worked.

Note, that this is a transfer from an Enterprise account to the App Store. Parallel distribution via both channels is not possible with the same Bundle ID.

Also users were not able to update the Enterprise app with the App Store version. The installation failed and users need to delete the app before installing it again.