Create development and Distribution provisioning profile

Introduction to Provisioning profiles – Xcode:

In our last post we learned how can we create Development and Distribution certificates. In this tutorial we would learn how to create provisioning profile. If you did not know how to create development and distribution certificates for code signing, you can learn from below link

Learn how to create Development and Distribution certificate

NOTE: Main difference between certificates and provisioning profiles is that certificates are independent of app id’s whereas provisioning profiles are dependent to App id’s and different for different App id’s.

Provisioning profile contains information about your app and the physical devices on which app can get installed during development phase.

First we will learn to create development provisioning profile, for this we need to create app identifier(if already not created) and add our devices on which we want to install our app during development phase

App identifier: As the name suggest this uniquely identifies your app within the iOS system. Thus helping in enabling you to use things like in-app purchasing, push notifications, game center and more inside your app.

Steps to create provisioning profiles:

Step 1: Login with your developer account on Apple developer website

Step 2: Click on certificates, identifiers and profiles as shown in given below image/screenshot

Click on certificates, identifiers, profiles

Step 3: Select App IDs placed as second column on left side of your screen.

Step 4: Click on + button, you will see screen as shown below

Enter App ID name in teh field App ID Description

Give it a name that is meaningful and easy to remember e.g. MathLearner , i created this id for my app named MathLearner

Under App ID Suffix, select Explicit App ID(default selection). Enter you id in Bundle ID field as shown

Step 6: Select App services your app offering to the users. e.g. push notification etc.

Step 7: Press continue and in next step confirm the services you opt for your app. Press register. You successfully created identifier for your app.

Now we will add device (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) on which we want to test our app. For this we need UDID (Unique device identifier).

Step 8: Click on All under devices listed on left side column on your screen. Type the name and UDID. Click Continue and follow steps. You can only add 100 devices.

Step 9: Now we are done with our identifiers and devices let us create our provisioning profiles. Select iOS App Development, if you want to create development provisioning profile and App Store, if you want to create distribution provisioning profile. After selection press continue.

Step 10: Select App id for which you want to create the provisioning profile and press continue.

Step 11: Select certificate with which you want to sign your provisioning profile and press continue.

Step 12: Name your provisioning profile and press continue. (If you are creating development profile then you need to select devices before this steps shown on your screen)

Step 13: You are done with creating provisioning profile. You can now download it form download button.

Where to go from here:

In this post you learn how to create provisioning profile (Development Provisioning profile and Distribution Provisioning profile) along with App identifiers and how to add iPhone devices to the developer portal.