Do apps with expired enterprise provisioning profiles stop working?

What happens to an app when the enterprise provisioning profile that's it's built with expires?


A client I'm working for wants to use their enterprise account to provide an app to their remote staff. These are BYOD devices, and they don't want to fully manage them, just install and maintain this app (and possibly others but for now just a sigle app.)


Does the app stop working when the provisioning profile it's built with expires? If not, what does happen?


If it does stop working, what's the best practice for getting an updated app into remote staff's hands prior to the expiry of the provisioning profile?


And can we use MDM to simply deliver and update the enterprise app on remote staff's devices without taking over other aspects of managing their iDevices?


About the only other thing we might want MDM for is managing proxy settings, and possibly setting up a VPN.

Hello, how are your experience?

Did the Enterprise apps stop working after the provisioning profile is expired?

The short answer here is, yes, if provisioning profile or certificate expires, the apps will fail to open or install. It's different from the App Store where once the app is available on the store, that version lives forever. Especially the certificate part of this process creates painful hassles every 3 years for teams that actively use both allowed distribution certificates, since it means that you must either wait for it to expire, or revoke it early in order to free up a spot for a new cert - which obviously is downtime in either case.

With provisioning profiles, it's a bit easier since you can get ahead of the game with a new build on a fresh provisioning profile at any time in the annual expiration cycle, and you can also upload fresh provisioning profiles to previous copies of your app in the MDM provider (we have had mixed results with this).

Do apps with expired enterprise provisioning profiles stop working?
 
 
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