iPhone app without AppStore

We have an industrial app that currently runs on a very expensive ruggedized PDA. Since most of the engineers we sell to have iPhones we are considering moving to the much nicer newer platform.

A couple of questions: Is it possible to sell iPhone apps with out the app store? Apple taking a 40% cut of a 99c iFart app is one thing but this is a $3000 engineering calculation app. We have also heard of the hassles some people have had getting apps approved.

Can we sell an iPod touch (I understand selling an iPhone without a contract is trickier) with pre-packaged software.

ps. Sorry for the anonymous posting, the company is a little nervous about our relationship with the PDA maker.

There are basically three different official iPhone application distribution methods that I am aware of:

- App store

With this method anyone with an iPhone can have access to the application. You can distribute an unlimited number of applications like this. Apple gets a 30% cut. Of course Apple must approve your applicaion.

- Ad hoc

You can distribute applications using ad hoc without going through the app store, but you are limited to a maximum of 100 devices. With this method you can distribute you application from a web site, email, etc.

- Enterprise

The method is for internal distribution in companies with more than 500 employees. Apple does not provide any more public detail that I could find on this method.

It doesn't sound like any of these methods meet your criteria unless you have fewer than 100 customers and don't plan to exceed that number. It sounds like from the question your customers are not internal to your company.

I would advise contacting Apple. They might be able to work out some kind of custom distribution deal.

Enterprise developer program allows in house distribution, avoiding the appstore. It's $299 vs $99 and doesn't include AppStore distribution.

>For companies with 500 or more employees who are creating proprietary in-house applications for iPhone and iPod touch.

Apple also has a B2B Program, which sound like you are aiming for. It allows you to sell your apps directly to other businesses. You can find out more here: https://developer.apple.com/programs/volume/b2b/

Spotify has a free app you can download, but to use it you have to have a Premium account. So you don't have to sell your app for $3000 to go thru the app store.

You can give the app for free in Appstore, but it will require an online activation. The online activation will cost 3000$. If apple would not accept the app, you can try to create a very limited version (without activation) and get it accepted in appstore. Then release un update for it, which will enable online activation system.

It's a pity - the iPhone/iPod touch could make a really nice platform for automation/interface stuff.
I was working on an embedded industrial platform recently - a 16bit micro, 64K memory, a serial port and a 120x128 2 grey level screen for $1000/unit and $10,000 for the appalling OS/devkit.

I can't see how apple could possibly care if you purchase iPod touches, jailbroke them, installed your app and sold them to customers.

For a $3k app, the $220 for an iPod Touch is less than 10% of the sales price.

Testflight. Google it. Basically you get an account with testflight. Put your app on testflight. You send your customer an email and they click it on their iphone. It sends testflight an email with your customers device ID. Testflight sends you an email saying "a New customer requested your app" and their device ID. You add their device ID to your provisioning chain and rebuild your App. Upload it to testflight, they get a notification that it's ready, and they can install it. Somewhere in there be sure to get your money :)

Native app, no. However, you can create it as a Web App that's specialized for the iPhone, in which case you circumvent the app store altogether.

You could consider a HTML5 app on Safari which offers many of the features of an app like offline access, local storage, canvas for rich graphics etc. No distribution issues and no commission. Depends what you need - access to camera, compass I think is not possible. (Also: works on Android)

Edit: Here's a great intro -

http://sixrevisions.com/web-development/html5-iphone-app/

How to Make an HTML5 iPhone App

Build a version of Tetris that is "for the most part, it’s going to be a pitch-perfect imitation"

• Full Screen
• Offline Cache
• Persistent storage

If your app is pretty expensive, you probably have few customers and they receive personal support, so what you could do is the following:

• Have each customer get their own Apple developer license ($99/year). Your support can talk them through the process, or you can probably do it for them. Give them a discount/credit for the $99 they pay to Apple.
• Compile your apps logic into a library, and make a thin shell that loads code from the library.
• Give the customer the XCode project for this shell, and the binaries for your code :-). Write a little OS X app that triggers the download of XCode, the compilation, and installation, so they can "compile" and deploy "the app they are developing" (a.k.a. your app) to their devices. Or, do it as a service for them.
• Don't forget to get your lawyers involved. I'm sure there are ways to look at it in which this is legal, and interpretations in which this violates some license. There is probably a way to make this waterproof, e.g. by calling your customers "developers" and yourself "consultants" in the contract or something. Helping a customer compile their app is not prohibited :-)

If you do this, deployment is not going to be so smooth as if you go the official way, but you'll save a lot of money. For a $3000 app, instead of 30% you'll give Apple 3.33%. I haven't done this, and I don't know anybody who has, and can't even recommend it, but I also can't see why it wouldn't work. So it might be worth a try.

I wish. Short answer, no.

There is some kind of a hack, whereby you isntall your app in a ad hoc manner, but you can only have 100 devices. Painful road if you ask me.

The way to do this would be to give the app for free in iOs store.
But charge $3000 for an activation code or subscription fee purchased from your website.

You will need to give the free app some basic functionality of some kind, however. Apple won't approve the app if it doesn't do anything without the activation code.

If it was me I would do one of the follow:

1. Submit it to Apple and sell it for free. They then enter a license code bought from you to access the full feature set. Include a welcome page, about us, contact page for unlicensed functionality. As Apple won't approve it if it does nothing.

2. Get the companies you're selling to to open an Enterprise account with Apple. Then you build the IPA and sign it using their credentials and send them the IPA.

Good luck.

This article summarizes all the answers to this question and discusses Apple's B2B, iOS developer enterprise program, adhoc distribution and testflight.

http://mobiledan.net/2012/03/02/5-options-for-distributing-ios-apps-to-a-limited-audience-legally/

All of the solutions (except the test-oriented solutions, which are limited), however, force you to get Apple's approval before publishing and updating. This process can take time and can leave your users stranded when you have a critical bug that needs a quick update.

If this is a deal breaker for you, you might want to try developing the app for Android, which also has advantages and drawbacks, but in your specific case, gives you more flexibility.

In Android, you can email an APK file, a user clicks it, and the app gets installed on the device.

In iOS, every devices that is not a member of the "enterprise program", "b2b" program or is provisioned for testing, cannot install the app.

You have to jailbreak the iPhone to put an app on it not from the app store.