(I think this is a job for SO and not programmers.SE, please let me know if I’m wrong)
I work for a company which has several offices in various parts of the country (USA).
The division I’m part of wants to get an Apple iOS Developer Program license.
Another division (in another office/state) already has a license.
When we go to that division they said it would be better/easier to just apply for our own license, which made sense.
When we apply to get the license we have to use our legal company name.
Apple shot us down – because the other division already has the license under the legal company name. Which also makes sense.
Apple is being Apple in that it’s basically impossible to get someone on the phone to discuss what we’re supposed to do here. So my guess is that what we’re going to have to do is piggy-back off of the license the other division is using.
Besides sounding like a big huge hassle (coordinating with coworkers in another office/state whom you’ve never met) I’m not really sure what the logistics are. Are we supposed to be able to use this one license on every Mac we own across the company? (which luckily there’s not that many of) Or is there a seat limit? The end goal is the App Store, but should we have gotten an Enterprise license? If so, is there any way to “upgrade” to that if the other division just got the standard one? Is someone from the other division supposed to be the “admin” of the license? Or can we all be added as users to their license?
For a large, spread out company with divisions in many different offices and states, how are you supposed to work with the iOS Developer Program?
Possible legal issues aside, iOS developer program technically supports small-to-medium companies. You can assign your staff different roles in iTunes Connect, you can distribute both Ad Hoc and Simulator builds. You can run your apps on up to 100 devices. All this is not only possible, it works. The company I’m working for uses one certificate for everybody, including remote devs like me.
I think you have to structure your work around it a bit, but a multitude of certificates wouldn’t make your life much easier, in fact, it might make your life harder. What you should do is assign an admin who is responsible for App Store submissions and user management. You can then have as many developers working on the same project as needed. Communication is an entirely different problem which cannot be effectively solved with multiple certificates.