I am having problems in deploying a company-specific (i.e. non-public) app that I have created.
The app itself, is a Xamarin Forms sample app, that I have downloaded from Xamarin and have customized it for my purposes inside of Visual Studio 2017 on my PC.
With this, I can build and debug the app on my iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, all using the Free Provisioning method (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/ios/get-started/installation/device-provisioning/free-provisioning?tabs=windows), through my connected MacBook Pro. (All good so far!)
My Apple account is part of our company's Apple Enterprise account and have followed all instructions online (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/ios/deploy-test/app-distribution/in-house-distribution?tabs=windows) about creating an Adhoc distribution certificate to (in theory) sign the app when creating the output .IPA file; I need the .IPA file as the aim is to use an MDM tool we use (Cisco Meraki) to push out to targeted company iOS devices.
The certificates that I have set-up in the Apple Developer website all appear in Visual Studio, and have them selected in my Release configuration for the app, as instructed (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/ios/deploy-test/app-distribution/ipa-support?tabs=windows).
The output .IPA file appears to be created successfully, and I can upload it to Meraki as per their instructions... but when the app appears on the device, the install seems to stop, the icon is heavily darkened and the app is just a useless icon on the device.
I have tried other configurations of build config in VS2017, multiple other devices, and have even tried to use Apple's MDM tool (Configurator 2) but I get pretty much the same result.
Am I missing something? Is there an option inside of Visual Studio 2017 that I need to toggle to allow the output app to actually work?
So, it turns out that I didn't actually sign up for the correct Apple account initially, and this is the basis of all my problems.
I signed up to the Apple Developer Account, which allows you to create apps for use in the App Store, but not for use with an MDM tool, like Cisco Meraki or Apple Configurator2. This account is $79/year.
What I should have signed up for, was the Apple ENTERPRISE Account, which does allow for the publication of house to devices via an MDM tool, but does not permit publication to the App Store. This account is $299/year.