Given the tight control Apple has over what you can do with an iOS device such as an iPad, is there any way you can download your own software into your own device without being a registered developer and pay $$$ to them?
Also, can you configure an app to run automatically when you turn the device on?
The thing I have in mind is a simple program to reset the configuration files of applications such as SkyDemon.
That would be very useful in a club context where a device is shared between several people.
Or is this perhaps something that is already available on the App Store?
Without jailbraking the device you cannot access the files of other apps or the OS or even your app’s files outside the docs folder. I understand the frustration but it’s for the user’s protection. This is where everyone has been going for years and is e.g. why any app running in your browser (no matter the OS) cannot touch your files. You just cannot trust everyone and the best compromise seems to be to block everyone. Apple have brought this to a new level but it’s the same in the whole industry.
So I think you will need to live with the situation or open a feature request with SkyDemon to implement profiles or similar and hope enough users support it so that it gets implemented.
Under android this may be possible with Tasker, without rooting.
I did know the process for loading your own IOS apps (as a developer) and IIRC the app is tied to the specific device – to prevent publication and side-loading.
As a developer you can directly load an app you have developed onto your iOS device for testing. But Apple might not approve the app when you put it in the store.
Peter wrote:
I did know the process for loading your own IOS apps (as a developer) and IIRC the app is tied to the specific device – to prevent publication and side-loading.
That would be perfectly ok for my intended application. But if that app still could not access the files of other apps, it would not help much.
IOS and android run their apps in more or less closed containers. Others here know far more about this – whether they will see this thread I don’t know. You need a rooted device for an app to access other (general IOS) apps’ data, which is not a big deal if it is a specific-use device e.g. a moving map for flying. And if you root it, you can disable checking for updates etc, so people don’t apply updates in the field and break something, so you have a long term stable platform. I would always root any mission-critical IOS device and block all updates on it.
When an Ipad is issued to an airline crew, it isn’t rooted AFAIK but they are normally banned from doing “personal” stuff on it – for obvious reasons. We have done this before IIRC but some higher-end bizjets come with an Ipad for controlling stuff like aircon climate control for the passenger cabin, and I reckon those apps didn’t come from the IOS app shop 
They are probably developer apps which were side-loaded.
Alexis wrote:
As a developer you can directly load an app you have developed onto your iOS device for testing. But Apple might not approve the app when you put it in the store.
But for that you must be a registered developer (paying your 99$ per year or whatever it costs). Uploading the app directly to your device will save you long waits during the testing and debugging phase. But without registering as a developer (and paying) it won’t let you upload anything.
There are only “registered” developers.
Alexis wrote:
There are only “registered” developers.
I am an unregistered developer. I have paid my house off developing software long before I made flying my primary source of income. So first thing after I bought my iPad was to install Xcode (can be downloaded freely from Apple) on my Mac and make a little app for my most often needed calculations in the cockpit. Only to find out that I had to pay 99$ first before Apple would let me transfer my own program from my own Apple device #1 to my own Apple device #2. Never came across anything like that before!
Well, Apple gives the developers a great development toolkit, a perfectly well organized worldwide shop for their apps …. and I wonder why they shoud not charge members for that. Of course one could argue that they also get 30 % of the app sales … OTOH many developers mae a lot of money in the iOS appstore. I personally know one guy who became a millionaire – with a GA aviation app he developed in his kitchen.
