What is the difference between a Development Provi

Question

What is the difference between a development provisioning profile and an ad hoc provisioning profile?

Couldn't we always use the ad hoc profile for everything but the store?

Answer 1

In general:

• Development profile allows you to test your apps on your physical devices
• App Store Distribution profile allows you to sign your apps for App Store distribution
• Ad Hoc Distribution profile allows you to sign your apps for Ad Hoc distribution

If you want to test your app with debugger and everything what Xcode provides, you have to use the development profile.

It is possible to install apps for testing purposes using distribution profiles, but you can't take advantage of the Xcode testing tools.

Summary:

• Use development profile for testing and debugging your app
• Use distribution profile for signing and distribution of your finished and ready-to-use app.

Answer 2

An ad-hoc provisioning profile is used later in the development process, particularly when you want to distribute your app to a small or medium size group of testers that are not included in the iOS developer program for your organization. An app deployed with an ad-hoc provisioning profile will be almost identical to the version you submit to the App Store (ie. it will need a distribution certificate for push notifications to work, etc.)

Of course you could add your QA team and betatesters to the organization and use a development provisioning profile, but this approach has many disadvantages:

• You may end up with many development certificates, making it difficult to manage them.
• You are giving your betatesters the right to compile and run the app on a device. (This is a extremely bad policy.)
• You want to test your app in the closest possible environment to the App Store environment. Development environments, like running the app from Xcode, can masquerade some bugs that will show up when you publish your app.