iOS Question Selected Audience Distribution

[RichardN]

I wish to distribute a non-commercial app at no charge to a limited audience of up to 5000 users. The data contained within the app is sensitive but not top-secret. It would be a simple matter to distribute the app free on iTunes but with it clearly documented that it is facilitated for consumption by a particular audience only.

I have the ability to allow users to download some sort of token/certificate from a secure website that only the target audience have access to, this token could then facilitate device access to display the data. iOS appears to permit download of certificates to permit compilation in B4i by remote access but is this method suitable for my purposes ?

Firstly, is this type transaction permitted by Apple? Anyone have any experience of this?

Secondly how does one create such a token / certificate and then check it in the code ???

 

[Erel]

Start your app with a log-in screen. This will allow you to control who has access to your app.

 

[RichardN]

Thanks Erel... but there are several reasons why I don't want to do that.

1. I don't want a fixed single-password for all users type login as it can be shared outside the community too easily. Sure I could update the required password periodically online but the ongoing admin overhead must be kept too a minimum. This option has too little security.
2. For similar workload reasons I don't want to be administrating an online per-user password database.
3. In any case the user environment will be without internet connectivity a lot of the time so any online access solution is a non-starter.

The community in question already has a secure website accessed by current members that could host the download of some sort of token that would facilitate the running of a community app.

My iOS devices already have in Settings > General > Profiles & Device Management several MDM and Configuration Profiles. I was thinking that creating a token like your 'ca.pem' profile might effectively act as a licence for a legitimate user. A little reading around the subject suggests that various payloads can be added, even one that permits timed expiry. Creating such a token or interacting with it in code is the bit that remains a mystery for me. Can you help ?

 

[Erel]

A little reading around the subject suggests that various payloads can be added, even one that permits timed expiry

Can you post the link to this information?

 

[RichardN]

https://developer.apple.com/library...tionProfileRef/Introduction/Introduction.html

I may have misunderstood the applicability of this area. I certainly don't think Apple intended this functionality to be used in this way but if it is exposed to the programmer then why not ?

 

[Erel]

I don't see how you can use this feature. Anyway it is not really related to B4i, it is a general iOS feature.