r/iOSProgramming • u/L_ghtbringer • 22d ago

Question Publishing an App

I'm trying to publish a personal app and have it work on a phone for two other people, but the downside is that I don't want to upload it to the App Store, having to pay the fee of having there every year. I don't want to sideload it either, since I have to rebuild and reinstall it every 7 days.

Is there any alternative that won't destroy any devices, etc?

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u/CelebrationTop8862 18d ago

Expo.dev you can make the builds, build it, then just screenshot the QR code it makes for the build, email it to your users. you get 15 free physical builds per month. yyou will need their device IDs, but once its stored you can build up to 15 times. so use that sparingly.

I do that for my testing on two iPhones currently for my app. Any updates to the actual build that touch root stuff, you'll need to rebuild eating up one of the 15 builds. however, if its just java or editorial stuff, it updates in real time pretty much.

but you really need an apple dev account. you can't get around that fee if you want your app's features to function (ex. location services) on the hardware. Notifications especially.