What is Wildcard App IDs?

Answer

A wildcard app ID allows you to use an app ID to match multiple apps; wildcard app IDs are useful when you first start developing new apps because you don’t need to create a separate app ID for each app. However, wildcard app IDs can’t be used to provision an app that uses APNS, In App Purchase, or Game Center.

A wildcard app ID omits some or all of the bundle ID in the search string and replaces that portion with an asterisk character (*). The asterisk must always appear as the last character in the bundle search string.

When you use a wildcard app ID, characters preceding the asterisk (if any) must match the characters in the bundle ID, exactly as they would for an explicit app ID. The asterisk matches all remaining characters in the bundle ID. Further, the asterisk must match at least one character in the bundle ID. This table shows an example search string and how it matches some bundle IDs but not others.

If an app id uses an * as the bundle ID, then the search string matches any bundle ID.