Have UDIDs always been required for installing custom Apps?

iOS
#1

Hi All,

I have a fleet of old iPods that were setup with a custom App years ago. Recently due to an issue with the MacBook used to supervise the fleet I have needed to reset each of the iPods (using iTunes restore).

I have received a new version of the App (from the Developer) and am now proceeding to install it onto the newly restored iPods. In order to install the App I first need to load each iPods UDID into our Developer Account, and then download an appropriate provisioning profile. What I find interesting is that there were only a handful of UDIDs listed under our account; however we literally have a fleet of hundres of iPods.

My question is has it always been necessary to upload UDIDs, to a Developer account, then download a provisioning profile before installing Apps?

Kind Regards,

Davo

#2

Gonna go with yes on this one. If you want to install custom-developed apps onto your devices, you have to have a provisioning profile which contains the device UDID.

More from Apple’s developer documentation here: https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/IDEs/Conceptual/AppDistributionGuide/TestingYouriOSApp/TestingYouriOSApp.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40012582-CH8-SW1