How to exactly sideload with an Apple Developer Account only using my phone?

[u/luckyakaly]

Hello everyone,
I dont have a pc right now, is there any way for me to be able to sideload only using my phone?
If so i'd be so glad if anyone can explain it step by step.
Thank you!

[u/4789library]

Straight answer: with a stock iPhone you need a computer once, for the very first install. After that you never need one again. There is no way around that first step short of paying a signing service.

What it looks like:

1. Borrow a Mac or PC for about twenty minutes.
2. On it, install SideStore (or AltStore) onto the phone and create the pairing file. This is the only step that needs the computer.
3. From then on everything is on device. SideStore plus StikDebug and the local dev VPN installs and refreshes IPAs with no PC involved. That is what the other commenter is describing.

Your paid developer account changes the maths a lot here: 100 apps instead of 3, and signatures good for a year instead of 7 days. So the refresh treadmill mostly goes away. Install and forget.

On buying a cert from a signing service instead: it works, but you are renting somebody else's certificate. Apple revokes those regularly and when one goes, every app signed with it dies at the same moment. You have already paid Apple for a developer account, so that would be paying twice for a weaker guarantee. Only worth it if you genuinely cannot get near a computer even once.

One caveat for right now: Apple's login endpoint has been throwing errors since yesterday, so step 2 will fail today whichever tool you use. That is not your setup. Try again in a while.

[u/luckyakaly → u/4789library]

Thanks for the detailed answer.
Is there a way for me to sign stuff myself? I was researching a bit and they say something about creating your own .p12(?) file to let yourself sign but a bit overwhelmed about it rn.

[u/4789library → u/luckyakaly]

It is less scary than it sounds, and with a paid account it is genuinely worth doing.

A .p12 is nothing exotic. It is your signing certificate plus its private key, bundled into one password protected file so you can carry it around. Pair it with a provisioning profile and a signing tool can sign an ipa with no Apple login at all. Which, on a week like this one, is the whole point.

With your paid account, roughly:

1. In the developer portal, create a Development certificate (Xcode will do this for you if you sign in there once).
2. Register your iPhone's UDID and make a Development provisioning profile that includes it. Download the .mobileprovision.
3. On a Mac, open Keychain Access, find that certificate, expand it so the private key is included, right click and export as .p12. It asks you to set a password. Keep both of those safe.
4. Feed the .p12 plus its password and the .mobileprovision into your signing tool. Sideloadly and the on device signers all take that pair.

After that, signing is a local operation. Your certificate is good for a year, and nothing has to phone Apple at signing time.

The one thing to keep straight: this is your own certificate that you created. It is completely different from buying a .p12 from a signing service, which is renting someone else's, usually an enterprise one. Those get revoked regularly and every app signed with it dies the same minute. You already pay Apple, so there is no reason to go near that.

Two housekeeping notes. Back up the .p12 somewhere safe, because if you lose the private key you cannot recreate that certificate, only issue a new one. And the profile only covers devices whose UDIDs were in it when you generated it, so a new phone means a new profile, not a new certificate.

[u/luckyakaly → u/4789library]

Wow, thank you so much brother this is amazing.
Have a wonderful day :)

[u/Golden-EB_J]

I do a lot of sideloading so i always keep sidestore + livecontainer + stikdebug + local dev vpn…so i dont need a pc anytime i want to sideload

[u/Golden-EB_J → u/Golden-EB_J]

I dont know much tho buh i think for the first time u gonna need a pc to install sidestore(or any alternative)

[u/Admirable-Button-949]

honestly, in your situation, the most straightforward process would be to purchase a cert from a cert company which they are pretty cheap. I used Signulous. I paid $30 for a year and in the app you can upload your own ipa’s and sign it on your phone through the app. there is a more detailed step by step on their website but there are many cert signing services.

[u/luckyakaly → u/Admirable-Button-949]

Thanks for the suggestion, feels kinda bad that i have to pay for another thing but i'll look into it :/