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Is there a way to distribute an iOS application to customers with a single bundle identifier outside App Store?

The software firm I work for is providing iPad software to several large companies. Right now we're using the Apple Developer Enterprise Program.

Each of these companies receive an IPA file with their own bundle id e.g. com.SuperApp.FirstCustomer, com.SuperApp.SecondCustomer. The companies install and manage our software using their own Mobile Device Management (MDM) system.

A 3rd-party component we would like to use in our software, PSPDFKit, is a lot more expensive if each of our customers have a dedicated bundle ID.

We don't want to distribute our software through App Store, we just want to send the IPA files directly to our customers – and our customers also prefer this way of the app distribution.

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    Have you contacted PSPDFKit sales about this? Rather than a technical problem, it sounds like a legal/paperwork issue a sales person could solve.
    – Graham Miln
    Commented Sep 30, 2018 at 14:31
  • I agree. And our plan is to contact PSPDFKit and discuss it with them. But I'd also like to know if we have other options before we do that. And I'm also curious. Maybe we will have another similar issue in the future and it would be good to know if there's a technical solution for that.
    – Bedford
    Commented Sep 30, 2018 at 15:15
  • Even if it could be done PSPDFKit could say you are not using it correctly and say yu need to pay - This is a legal question
    – mmmmmm
    Commented Sep 30, 2018 at 17:40
  • As paulw11 answered, you're distributing your app in the wrong manner. You're just lucky that Apple hasn't noticed it yet. Enterprise distribution is only to be used for distributing apps to your own employees. Apps that you have developed yourself. If you have a third party developing apps for you, you cannot use Enterprise Distribution. The correct way is to upload the app to Apple marked as private, and your customers then uses Apple Business Manager to distribute the app through MDM. Regarding the bundle identifier - if you did this,it sounds like you're essentially breaking...
    – jksoegaard
    Commented Dec 12, 2019 at 10:54
  • the license agreement for PSPDFKit. That doesn't sound like a solution at all. If you use the correct distribution method, you can use a single bundle identifer.
    – jksoegaard
    Commented Dec 12, 2019 at 10:55

1 Answer 1

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You should not be using an Enterprise Program membership in this way. The Enterprise Program should only be used to distribute apps to devices owned by the enterprise member company I.e. your company's devices.

You can use a regular organisational Apple a Developer membership to distribute a B2B to your client organisations.

You use App Store Connect as for a normal App Store app, but in the pricing and availability section you make it a private app and list the Apple Business Manager organisation IDs that are permitted to access the app.

As well as being "the right way", B2B apps are lifetime signed like any other App Store app; you don't need to worry about refreshing distribution profiles and signing certificates periodically.

There is a great WWDC 2019 session that covers this.

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