Apple’s Development Console explained

Recently I’ve been asked to explain what is a development certificate, and why do we need a Provision file ?! And also what the hell is an Identifier ???

So in the next few minutes I will try to explain as simple as I can, all of the terms that Apple use in the Developers Console.

Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles Snapshot

Certificates

Certificate is like a contract between your development machine (your shiny new MacBook Pro) and Apple Developers console, for example the basic certificate is in order to certify so that You and your machine are eligible to develop apps.

Anyone can develop apps without having a certificate ?! — Yes, that’s true, but without the certificate you actually can’t sign and submit your app to the Apple Store.

There are also different types of certificates to use, for example Push Notifications Certificate is for the server side of the Pushing and more.

Creating a Certificate Tutorial

Identifiers (previously App ID)

Identifier is your App’s configuration in the console, each app has its own unique identifier, Bundle id, Team and some extra configurations that apple suggest and called Capabilities.

• Bundle Id — unique code that you set to your app, it has to be the saved in the console and in your Xcode project on the Bundle Id settings. No other developer can set the same Bundle id as you did.
• Team (App ID Prefix) — usually it’s the same to all of your apps. One of the reasons to set a different team ID is if you have on your own account apps for different clients and you need to give each of them a separate team id.
• Capabilities — without diving to each setting in the capabilities list, I would say that the list is made of all features you would like to use in your app that is actually causing the app to communicate with the OS, for example if you are using Push Notifications, or you want to play music in the background — you will need the device to assist you to activate those functions..

Devices

As the name suggests, devices are the iDevices you add to your account in order to use to Test and Debug your Apps later on.

In a regular account you can add up to 100 iDevices in total per year. note that even if you reach the maximum limit, still when you remove a device it wont count down until next time (year) to reset the list.

Profiles (previously Provisions)

Profile is the one to connect all of the above settings, a profile is a kind of a signature file to your app. When you create a profile you need to choose —

1. for which App (Identifier) is it
2. a name (make it simple! easier to choose it later on the Xcode)
3. the Certificate(s) that is included

Also for Development Profiles it is possible to choose from the list of eligible iDevices that you can run your shiny new app on for debugging purposes.

Further reading see — https://help.apple.com/developer-account/

I hope you enjoy this reading,

Tomer