Installing app with adhoc provisioning profile to other iphone through itunes

Question

I was able to go through all the horrible process of builing the app for ad-hoc distribution. But I can't install it in an iphone from iTunes. It shows an error message after installing the app, then another pop up appears that says "Some items bought from the iphone, including "Blendr" couldnt be transfered to your iTunes Library because you have no autorization to use them in this computer.

It also gives the option of allowing this computer to use the items bought in the iTunes Store by selecting Store > Autorize, but the owner of the phone doesnt know his login/pass and also I need to make this proccess as fast as possible, since I will be installing this app to many phones, is there a way that the iphone doesnt sync with my iTunes and just installs the app?

Thanks

EDIT:

I figure out that iPhone was jailbreaked, so that's the reason of that error message. But I tried with an iPhone 4 not jailbreaked & iOS 5(my app is developed using iOS 4) and I couldn't drop the app in it, no error message whatsoever.. Any ideas?

Mark Granoff Mark Granoff · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-14T19:52:10

You may want to check out Test Flight which is a free service that lets you manage builds and distribute them to your users for testing. It uses some funky provisioning services in iOS that allows their app to be installed and then to provision the user's device for your app. It's pretty cool and really simplifies the whole Ad Hoc distribution process.

Now, truth be told, I've only played with this service a bit, and it was about a year ago. My sense is that to use it effectively, your users have to have some savvy about what is going on to be successful with it. I have not looked too deeply into it lately, but they are still in business, and it's been over a year since I tried it. I would check it out! I plan to do just that for my next project.

EDIT:

As far as using the "traditional" Ad Hoc methods... I have always distributed Ad Hoc builds (.ipa files) along with the Ad Hoc distribution profile used to build the ipa file to users via e-mail. Users need both files. And I have always instructed users to save the files to their desktop, launch iTunes, connect their device, drag/drop the saved files onto their iTunes Library, then sync. It should be that simple.

The other errors you're seeing seem unrelated to installing an Ad Hoc build on an iPhone that has been provisioned to use it. iTunes seems to do a lot of stuff automatically around making sure it has everything downloaded from the cloud that you bought, that it's all on the devices it's supposed to be on, etc. That is all ancillary to the Ad Hoc process, except that you do have to sync your device to get the Ad Hoc build installed, so there is no avoiding having iTunes do all it's housekeeping.

Perhaps the thing to do is to resolve all those other iTunes issues before trying to install any Ad Hoc software. That is to say, get things cleaned up so that iTunes is happy with the iPhone in question when it is connected, and is able to sync it without errors. (I know; easy for me to say. But I think you have resolve those issues first.)

Installing app with adhoc provisioning profile to other iphone through itunes

2 Answers