I am new to distribution on the Apple App Store, and I am looking to publish my first app, which is a macOS developer tool. I have a few questions about this: Can I have prerelease macOS apps? I’m thinking it would be good to get the app approved for distribution on Apple’s end, but not have the app actually visible in the Mac App Store. If that’s possible, can I release promo codes for this app before it’s available on the Mac App Store?
The idea is to make beta testing easy. Rather than having testers send me device specific information, then have to download the app online somewhere, what if I could just have them enter a MAS promo code that installed a prerelease version of the app for testing. Ideally, once it’s ready for release, they would own the app already and could update to the release version. If there’s an easier way to pull off macOS application beta testing, I’d appreciate advice on that. Thanks!