Development distribution overview

Before this chapter goes into what provisioning profiles are, it is important to understand how an app is distributed at a high level. The Member Center, or developer portal, as this book refers to it, is a paid developer program that developers enroll in to be able to gain the privilege to distribute apps to devices for testing, as well as for publishing to the App Store.

The following diagram illustrates the path a developer takes in three phases:

• Enroll
• Develop
• Distribute

Enrollment

The first thing a developer will need to do is enroll in the Apple Developer Program (https://developer.apple.com/programs/), paying a nominal yearly fee of $99 USD. In return, Apple provides the developer...