I'm building an iOS app (bundle identifier ca.fanforge.pos, Team ID 856C6JT832) that uses a third-party payment SDK to connect to a physical Bluetooth card reader. The SDK requires my app to successfully complete Apple's App Attest process against the production environment before it will allow a real card reader to connect.
I have set the entitlement com.apple.developer.devicecheck.appattest-environment to production in my app's entitlements, and I have enabled the App Attest capability on my App ID in the Apple Developer portal. I confirmed directly, by extracting the compiled app binary and running codesign -d --entitlements :- MyApp on it, that the entitlement is present with the value production in the actual signed binary, not just in my source configuration.
When I distribute this exact build as an ad-hoc build (a registered test device added to my provisioning profile, not through TestFlight or the App Store), the card reader fails to connect with an error indicating it cannot establish a secure connection to the payment provider's servers.
When I distribute the identical app (same version, same entitlements, same provisioning) through TestFlight instead, the card reader connects successfully and I am able to process a real payment.
Steps I have already taken to rule out other causes:
Verified the payment provider's account credentials are valid and correctly configured for production (confirmed via a direct API call returning a successful response) Verified the App Attest capability is enabled on my App ID in the Apple Developer portal Verified the entitlement value directly in the compiled binary's code signature (not just my source files) Registered the required application signature with the payment provider Fully removed and reinstalled the app between tests Confirmed the reader hardware itself works correctly (it connects successfully in the TestFlight-distributed build)
My question:
Does ad-hoc distribution have different behavior than documented for the com.apple.developer.devicecheck.appattest-environment entitlement? Apple's documentation states that after distribution through TestFlight, the App Store, or the Apple Developer Enterprise Program, an app automatically uses the production App Attest environment regardless of the entitlement value. It also states that for other distribution methods, the entitlement value itself should directly control which environment is used. My ad-hoc build has the entitlement explicitly set to production, yet its behavior matches what I would expect from the sandbox environment, not production.
Expected outcome: I would like to understand whether ad-hoc distribution is expected to correctly honor an explicit production entitlement value for App Attest, or whether there is a known limitation or additional requirement for ad-hoc distribution specifically that isn't covered in the entitlement's documentation.