is there any way to distribute ios applications outside app store?
There are several possibilities, which probably won't match your needs:
- Since last month it's possible to test apps on a device without the need of a paid membership.
- There's a possibility to deploy an app through a service like TestFlight, but this needs either a profile installed on the device (like HockeyApp) or always new build since the old ones expire after 30 days.
- You could deploy an app with the Enterprise Program
The easy way you describe is not possible.
Apart from the options mentioned above there are 2 more methods.
Method 1:
You could ask the user to open a webpage in safari browser with the following link in it.
href="itms-services://?action=download-manifest&url=url of the manifest file"
The app is installed as soon as the user clicks the link.
Method 2:
You can also leverage iOS mdm solutions like Hexnode MDM though its bit of an overkill.
UPDATE:
BuddyBuild service will stop on 1-3-2018, the other alternative I know is https://www.diawi.com
Old ANSWER:
Try BuddyBuild , after making a build you can take link to IPA file and distribute it as shown.
