Question

we want to develop a small utility for the iPhone for a very small set of users…
We’re thinking about developing it with PhoneGap/html/javascript as we want to make it available under other mobile platforms.

Given that it’s only for a small number of users within a particular organisation, would we submit that to AppStore? Is App Store meant for general public applications?

Any recommendations on how to approach this?
thanks

Answer 1

To be explicit, you only have three options:

1. Put your app in the app store – it must pass Apple’s review, and will be available to anyone and everyone
2. Use the enterprise program that Ken describes in his answer (No approval process and you can limit distribution, but your company must have 500+ employees)
3. Keep your app inside the browser – i.e. deploy it as a web site instead of an application.

If your company isn’t large enough to qualify for the enterprise deal then it sounds like none of those might be precisely what you’re hoping for, but unfortunately those are the choices right now.

(Technically there’s also a 4th option – a way to distribute an app to a small number of users without using the store or the enterprise program. But that’s only supposed to be for testing, and there would be annoyances (if not terms-of-use violations) if you tried to use this as a way to distribute an in-house app.)