Ask HN: What are you working on?

Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by alex_c on Sunday July 12, 2009 @11:54PM (#701055)

For small deployments, you can use "Ad-hoc" distribution - users have to jump through some minor hoops (give you their device UUID, then drag the app file into their iTunes and sync to the iPhone), but it works. It's mainly aimed at distributing copies for testing or reviewing before an app hits the app store, and I think there's a limit to how many copies you can distribute this way (100 different devices? Don't remember 100%, I'd have to look it up).

You can also physically install the app yourself from your development machine if you get their device (again, there might be a limit on the number of devices, since you have to register each one).

As rdouble mentioned, there's also the enterprise program.

And, of course, there are jailbroken devices with third party app "stores". I don't have much experience with these, but jailbroken iPhones are supposed to make up a significant percentage of users - might not be as useful for business use, though.

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Re:Ask HN: What are you working on? by jpierce420 on Monday July 13, 2009 @01:31AM (#701150)

Ahh ok, thanks for clearing that up. I remembered after my last post that my professor showed me a free Standford web class on developing for iPhone, and they were giving real, in-person students iPhones to test their apps on. Still, they shouldn't limit this, nobody would overtake the appstore, they just can't stand even the smallest percentage getting around them. Makes me sick. The iPhone could be such a better device, but Apple keeps cutting apps for the use of 'undocumented APIs'. A few apps made the camera do things that Apple never imagined being possible, and they get cut for the above reason. I just wish they would open up more, broaden their horizon a bit. They're such control freaks.

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