closed beta application in the app store?

Question

Hi!

Is there a way to have something like a closed private beta in the app store? So a customer could see and try the product after I sent him the link. If the app get's approved by a customer I would change the status from private to available (or something like that).

Is this possible with apples app store?

Thank you.

Answer 1

No, you can't do so - if application comes to appstore it is available for all users. I think you should use Ad Hoc distribution for this purpose.

Answer 2

No. If your application is accepted to the App Store, you can only make it available to everyone. If you want to do a private beta, you'll need to gather the device IDs of all your testers and create an ad hoc provisioning profile that includes them. You'll need to find your own way of distributing both the application and the profile outside of the App Store.

Answer 3

This is not possible with the App Store.

The closest you could get would be the Ad-Hoc Distribution program, and that is limited to 100 participants in your beta.

You can get details on Ad-Hoc distribution from the iPhone developer site.

Answer 4

You should use the Ad Hoc distribution, which allows you to distribute the app to 100 devices.

The major drawback is that you must register all the devices prior building the app.