Enterprise Apps Get Easier

Back in the days of our CEES iPrep app, Apple made it kind of a pain to distribute works outside of the App Store. Businesses that wanted to create internal tools had use ad-hoc builds — a process that’s pretty difficult for even tech-savvy clients.

Someone at Apple woke up and realized that internal business apps needed their own tools. Enter the Apple Developer Enterprise Program.

In the past, clients had to know in advance every single device that would run the app. Then, every device’s unique identifier (UDID) had to be sent to the developer, who gave each individual device permission. Yes, this kept things very secure — but each time that list of devices changed, the app had to be rebuilt. It’s incredibly frustrating for people who expect apps to be downloaded with a tap.

For enterprise apps, no UDID registration is required. You don’t have to know anything about the device in advance, actually. As long as you have a secure method of distribution (like an internal, password protected website), you can distribute the app throughout the company with a tap. IT departments can even mass install it using a mobile device management server or a configuration utility.

Enterprise apps aren’t automatically updated for security reasons, so you will have to notify users to redownload the app each time. But it’s gotten a whole lot easier to create internal business apps.