Hi all!

I have a provisioning file with the iphone id of all my friends.
My question is, How can I creeate a IPA file (or whatever) to send my game to my friends?

Thanks a lot.

You need to do what is called "Ad Hoc" distribution. You'll have to read the iPhone Developer Program User Guide and follow the instructions carefully. Many of us had a terrible time figuring it out. Hopefully they've made the instructions clearer since then. Once you're able to build your iPhone game for Ad Hoc distribution you can then give it to all your friends who were included in the provisioning profile, and they can install it on their devices by dragging the app and the provisioning profile onto iTunes.

AnotherJake Wrote:You need to do what is called "Ad Hoc" distribution. You'll have to read the iPhone Developer Program User Guide and follow the instructions carefully. Many of us had a terrible time figuring it out. Hopefully they've made the instructions clearer since then. Once you're able to build your iPhone game for Ad Hoc distribution you can then give it to all your friends who were included in the provisioning profile, and they can install it on their devices by dragging the app and the provisioning profile onto iTunes.

This is so difficult....

Some questions:
Must I activate something in my project settings? Can I use Debug version or must be release version?
It is suposed I have to send to my freind a file (profileadhoc.mobileprovisioning) and a folder (myapp.app). Where should I get this folder? is it this one: build/debug-iphoneos/MyApp
There is another one called build/debug-iphoneos/MyApp.app.dSYM
Can anyone tell me some advice?

Thanks a lot for your time and help.

riruilo Wrote:This is so difficult....

Uh huh, yep, it sure is. Welcome to the club

>> Must I activate something in my project settings? Can I use Debug version or must be release version?

It has to be a release version, just like if you were distributing on the app store.

>> It is suposed I have to send to my freind a file (profileadhoc.mobileprovisioning) and a folder (myapp.app). Where should I get this folder? is it this one: build/debug-iphoneos/MyApp
There is another one called build/debug-iphoneos/MyApp.app.dSYM
Can anyone tell me some advice?

When you create a release version of the app, it'll be in something other than the debug build folder (assuming you're using default settings for you location). Like if you have your distribution settings named "Distribution", it'll be in build/Distribution-iphoneos. Don't use the dSYM file, use the app with the white circle with a cross bar on it. You can right-click on it to show package contents to confirm that it contains the app.

Figuring out Ad Hoc can be tough, so the best advice I can offer is to be more patient than patient. Also, the standard recommendation is to consider practicing Voodoo. I prefer monkey dust and gopher guts, but I've heard of others using Barbie dolls and bobble-heads, with great success.

Seriously though. It is funky. One thing that is different when distributing for Ad Hoc vs. the App Store, besides adding device id's to the profile, is that you also have to add entitlements. Like I mentioned before, you have to read the manual *very* ****very**** carefully, and like 3 times to get it right.

AnotherJake Wrote:Also, the standard recommendation is to consider practicing Voodoo. I prefer monkey dust and gopher guts, but I've heard of others using Barbie dolls and bobble-heads, with great success.

Hahahaha!!!

Thank a lot AnotherJake. I'm going to try it out this weekend (voodoo, of course)

Does this work with PC users of Itunes?

kendric Wrote:Does this work with PC users of Itunes?

Voodoo or Ad-Hoc distribution?

Hehe...

kendric Wrote:Does this work with PC users of Itunes?

I've heard that you can use Ad Hoc distributions on Windows iTunes, but I've never tried it myself so don't quote me on it.

AnotherJake Wrote:I've heard that you can use Ad Hoc distributions on Windows iTunes, but I've never tried it myself so don't quote me on it.

By the end of the weekend I hope to supply one of my beta testers on Windows with a copy of Slope Rider, so I'll let you know how I go.

Good luck monteboyd, glad to hear you're up to beta with it!

monteboyd Wrote:By the end of the weekend I hope to supply one of my beta testers on Windows with a copy of Slope Rider, so I'll let you know how I go.

You will have to use BetterZip, if you use the finder's compression stuff it strips away some key information and they will be unable to install the App.

Window's testers are more of a pain then they are worth, I find that they rarely provide proper feedback. However I have used it a number of times to promote to companies and people who aren't mac minded.

Monteboyd feel free to get a hold of me if you have problems with it.

Thanks guys, I might need to take you up on the offer of help kodex, but not there yet. The Windows beta tester is my nephew so I think he should at least play the game quite a bit, I think he's excited about showing his friends something on his iPhone that only he has.

If you guys (or anyone else reading) are interested in beta testing it drop me an email.

Oh, and sorry for the thread hijack!

Impossible. There is no way. I'm going to give up. Why does apple do these things so difficult?
Does anyone know a good tutorial? (I use 2.2.0)

Thansk.

Don't give up, you can do it!

Did you check to see if Apple has any training videos on it? I thought I saw one a while back, although maybe that was my imagination...

AnotherJake Wrote:I've heard that you can use Ad Hoc distributions on Windows iTunes, but I've never tried it myself so don't quote me on it.

You can quote AnotherJake on this now, or me one of my testers on Windows has my beta working. So it is possible.

@riruilo - are you still having problems? The first time I tried I missed out a few things because I hadn't read the Program Portal User Guide properly. You can download it from the iPhone Developer Porgram Portal. Go through the steps it has for distribution very carefully, there are specific extra steps for Ad Hoc distribution.

Once you have finished all the steps and built your app with the distribution settings send your friends the .app file and the .mobileprovision file. As per kodex's suggestion I used BetterZip to send to my Windows tester. Your testers should then drag those two files (the extracted files, not the zip) onto their iTunes and sync their device. They may need to delete an old version of the app from within iTunes if there was a non-working version before.