Question Can you transfer an iOS Unity app to another iPhone device without using the iOS App store?

Is it possible to create an iOS app for installing it on different iPhones without using the iOS App store? The effort to distribute an iOS over the iOS App store is very high. I've built an Unity app on a real iPhone (with xcode building) and the app is installed on the connected iPhone. For this I'm using a normal apple id account (no developer account). Now if I want to distribute this app on another mobile device without the whole effort (creating developer account, procedure for iOS distribution etc.) so is there a possibility to do this in an easy way (like on Android with apk package)?

 

even if you could, it would expire in 1 week or so (if published without developer account)..

 

The app should be installed on other devices of other people (like on Android with apk package). So it is not possible in this case to install it locally via USB. Also it would be problematic to give other people the Xcode project for self-building. So it seems that you have to use a developer account as only solution.

 

I think the ipa file (if this is the archive file) can also only be build with a developer account. Without a developer account the Xcode archive function is grayed out and can't be used as far as I know, I tested this out few days ago.

 

and even with developer account, you cannot freely distribute ipa files to others, its not allowed.
(and you need their device UDID's before publishing, to generate certificates).

Testflight could be used, to send test builds.

Enterprise developer account would allow installing ipa files inside company. (but apple is not really taking new applications there).

Custom Apps: is apparently the new way to distribute apps, outside app store. (but this is for companies too).


What is your use case: is it your own game/app or company/business application or something else?
Could you make webgl build instead, so it might work on mobile browsers..

 

It's a stereoscopic VR 360 image gallery viewer and I also developed this with Aframe (webgl) about 2 years ago. But with the development of WebXR Aframe got some problems and issues. So Aframe does not work on iOS mobile devices (no VR support for Safari and other browsers) at the moment and also on Android devices there are some issues and smaller problems. So I was forced now to develop with Unity for Android and iOS and here on the other hand it takes much more effort to distribute the app to clients. So Aframe is the most easy way but at the moment it's not possible.

 

Yup, apple is the worst : D we fought several months with them to get Enterprise developer account, but nope, they wouldn't give it. (would had used it to develop inhouse apps).

So custom apps is the only way (if cannot get enterprise dev) and dont want to publish in public appstore..
https://developer.apple.com/custom-apps/

 

Thanks, I didn't know the "custom apps" and will have a look at it.