From Andreas Linde comes an iOS framework that simplifies rolling out provisioning profiles and beta versions of an app along with later updates over the air. All of this works without requiring a jailbroken device, using the new wireless distribution features of iOS 4. Obviously, this wouldn’t be approved in an iTunes submission, but for a beta phase, it’s a great solution to keeping everyone on the same version.
Keep in mind that you still need to register the UDIDs for your beta participants’ devices, and if you’re not an Apple licensed enterprise developer, you’re limited to 100 devices per year, across all of your apps, including non beta testers.
Read all about it on the Buzzworks blog, or watch this video demonstration below:
Hockey uses both a backend server and client side component and was inspired by a blog post on wireless iOS app distribution by Jeffrey Sambells (via Sophia Teutschler on Twitter).
Update: If you’re doing wireless distribution, the iOS Beta Builder utility might also come in handy, for creating the required manifest and HTML files for an IPA file.
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