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Apple Developer Program

Create applications for Apple hardware platforms with free Apple resources

Stanford UIT provides access for faculty, staff, and approved vendors/contractors to Stanford's Apple Developer Program account for mobile application development needs related to the university mission serving its faculty, staff, students, and visitors/affiliates. The Apple Developer Program is designed for iOS and macOS software developers and provides access to developer resources necessary for creating, building and distributing applications for Apple hardware platforms. Note that VisionOS and tvOS apps are not supported with this program.

These resources include:

  • Certificates
  • Provisioning profiles
  • Documentation
  • Beta downloads
  • Bug reporting
  • Forums

 

Features

  • Code signing certificates (development and distribution)
  • Apple Push Notification Service (APNS) certificates
  • Provisioning profiles (development and distribution)

 

Designed for

This service is only available for developers of applications officially owned/sponsored by Stanford University and component organizations that are intended for distribution with an ongoing concern to a broad Stanford-affiliated audience. Personal Apple Developer Program accounts are available from Apple for developers creating applications that are not officially supported by the university, such as: applications developed by students for courses, applications developed for research studies, or most applications with limited audiences. If you want to test upcoming macOS/iOS releases, UIT recommends enrolling in the Apple Beta Program. Please note that if your request is approved for access to Stanford's Apple Developer Connection, your app(s) will need to comply with Stanford's identity and branding guidelines, accessibility requirements, minimum privacy standards, data risk classifications, and overall alignment with the university Code of Conduct and university values. 

Note that this service only grants participants access to the developer account, account administration support, and necessary publishing certificates. This service does not provide any app development support.

Requirements

  • What is the name and purpose of your app?
  • Is this a new app or an existing app (migration)? The Stanford developer accounts cannot accept paid apps.
  • Who is the target audience of the app? What is the approximate potential size of the audience of your app?
  • Who will need access to the developer account?
  • What types of certificates and keys will the developer of the app need access to on the account?
  • Who is the business owner of the app and its requirements/features?
  • Who will provide end user support for the app?
  • Is there ongoing funding for the development and maintenance of the app?
  • What integrated development environment (IDE) and/or continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) service will you be using for development? 
  • What language and framework stack will you be using for your app development?
  • What is the timeline for launching your app?

Note that if you cannot use the cloud-managed distribution certificate, you will need to use the shared Stanford distribution certificate file for the account (certain certificates on the account have a limited number that we can generate for the whole account). You must not create any certificates that have a limit across the developer account (such as for iOS/macOS Distribution certificates), as doing so may result in your certificate being revoked without warning. You are not permitted to revoke or delete any existing certificates/keys you did not create and doing so may result in permanent removal from the Stanford Apple Developer account.

Also note that if you are added as an App Manager role to the account, you have the ability to add users to the account but must not do so. If you'd like to have another user added to the Stanford Apple developer account, please submit a help request. Unrecognized users on the account may be removed at any time without notice.

Rates

There is no charge for this service.

Get started

To request access to Stanford's Apple Developer Program, submit a Help request.

Learn more

For more information, visit developer.apple.com.

Please note that we use Apple's cloud managed distribution certificate for automatic code signing. See Apple's requirements for Xcode cloud to learn more.

See also

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