Xcode® 4

Chapter 11: Managing Certificates and Provisioning

In This Chapter

Understanding provisioning Creating and installing certificates/identities for iOS development Provisioning iOS devices Provisioning for OS X development

Parts of the development process require secure access to Apple services, so Xcode includes built-in features that manage these. Security management is known as provisioning. Provisioning has been simplified in Xcode 4, but it remains a complex process. It can take a few hours to a day to create the initial files, certificates, settings, and permissions that allow app store development. After it's working, you can forget about provisioning for at least three months, because the system doesn't need further attention. After that time, some permissions must be updated regularly. But the update process is much simpler and quicker than the initial setup.

Understanding Provisioning

Provisioning is a set of permissions that allows you to do three things. When provisioning is working, you can do the following:

Test apps on iOS hardware: This requires a Developer Certificate and a Development Provisioning Profile for each test device.

Upload apps to the App Store: This requires a Distribution Certificate and a Distribution Provisioning Profile.

Distribute apps to beta ...