Submitting to the iOS App Store

Preparing your App

In this TechNote, we'll cover what you need to do to submit your app to Apple's iOS App Store.

Apple is concerned that apps in its store work as described and do not cause any security risk. They also care that the apps provide some unique functionality and follow their Human Interface Guidelines. The results have been good: Apps in the iOS App Store are usually pretty good, and the store is now one of the largest software resellers on the planet.

The method used will be to take an AppStudio app, use PhoneGap Build to produce a .ipa file, then submitting that to Apple.

You can use this procedure for any AppStudio project. It will also work if your project uses the PhoneGap API. It will not work if you are using third party PhoneGap plug ins: for those, you will need to use the PhoneGap SDK method.

Start by testing your app as much as possible while it is still a web app. It will be much easier to make changes, fixes and improvements at this stage.

Get Signing Certificates

For security purposes, Apple has a strong signing process. This involves certificates which identify the developer, which need to be included in the build process. Apple issues these certificates as part of its developer program.

Apple has good instructions on its website about its policies, procedures and how to get the certificates. This is probably the most complex and confusing part of submitting an app, so it's good to pay attention carefully. The good news is that hundreds of thousands of developers have gone through it successfully.

You will need a Mac to do this and have XCode installed. You can download XCode from the iOS Developer Center.

1. Sign up for an iOS Developer Account

Enroll as enroll as an iOS Developer to submit apps to the App Store. It costs $99.00 USD per year.

2. Set up your information in the iOS Provisioning Portal

Sign on using your Apple ID and go into the Provisioning Portal. You'll see tabs on the left. These are the important ones for AppStudio developers:

Certificates

The Development certificate identifies you and your development computer. It is created using the in the KeyChain Access utility on your Mac. Under KeyChain Access, select Certificate Assistant, then Request a Certificate from a Certificate Authority. In the window that comes up, select "Saved to disk". When you continue, it will ask you for a file name to save it to. Using the default name is fine.

Then, go to the iOS Provisioning Portal and select Home. Click on Launch Assistant and follow the instructions on the screen.

For App ID, enter the short name of your app. You will want to use this consistently.

It will ask you to Assign a new Apple Device. This is the device you will use for your testing. You will need to enter a description on the device ("Bill's iPhone 5") and the Device ID. Get the Device ID (UDID) from iTunes with the device plugged in. In the Summary screen, click on "Serial Number and it will change to "Identifier (UDID)". Right click on it to copy it and paste it into the Launch Assistant.

Next, name your Provisioning Profile. You can call it whatever you like. It will then be generated and can be downloaded. Follow the rest of the instructions in the Launch Assistant to install the Provisioning File and Certificate.

Provisioning

.mobileprovision file