In iOS 6 or 7, the app exit to the home screen when I call UIApplication openUrl with a url of itms-services://XXXX to install a new version of my app (using enterprise deployment with ipa files).
In iOS 8, this is no longer the case. Now the app continue running just as nothing has happened, but if I go the home screen, I can see my app icon grayed out, with a downloading pie chart about 66% completed and the text "Downloading..." below. If I now wait for a while (less than a minute), the application is installed correctly and I can start my app again.
Has anyone else experienced this behavior? Have anyone seen any documentation regarding this? I can accept behavioral changes as long as it is documented, but I haven't seen any documentation regarding this.
Yes, you also get the same behaviour when clicking a download link in safari now on iOS8.
I'm not sure why they introduced this change but there isn't really a way around it (unless you force your app to crash with something like exit(0);)
Also, the itms-services url scheme is undocumented and is technically a private api. From experience, you're not allowed to submit apps to the App Store that use it.