On: Serious doubts about the App Store

[sireat]

As far as I know, unless your iPhone is jailbroken, you will be unable to run applications without a digital signature from Apple. Thus, for the vast majority App Store is the only place to get their apps.

Maybe, someone who is an actual iPhone developer, can explain the process in more detail.

[xelfer → sireat]

You compile your apps against different profiles depending on what you want to. Generally for:

1) Debugging your own app (works only on your own phone)

2) Distribution : http://imgur.com/PFYnK.png

i) Ad-hoc, limited to 100 devices: http://imgur.com/HjwnN.png

ii) For the app store

So yeah, you can compile it for 100 friends if you have their iPhone/iPod UUID, but you can't make it freely available for everyone.