SideStep Wizard

SideStep Wizard lets you hand anyone a one-click installer for your iOS app — no Xcode, and no developer account on their end. Point it at your app's GitHub repo once, and it builds a small installer you can send to people or link from your website. Opening it installs SideStep, gets their iPhone or iPad ready, and installs your app.

Download SideStep Wizard
notarized .dmg — macOS 14 (Sonoma) or newer, Apple Silicon

It never bundles a copy of SideStep — the installer downloads the latest SideStep at run time, so nobody is ever stuck on a stale version.

How it works

1. Point it at your GitHub repo

Enter the repo whose Releases hold your app's .ipa, and an app name. The wizard looks up the repo's immutable GitHub id — no URL shortener, nothing to register — so the installer keeps finding your app even if you later rename the repo.

The SideStep Wizard's first screen: a field for the GitHub repository and a field for the app name, with a Create Installer button.

2. It builds the installer — and a .zip to host

Click Create Installer and two files land on your Desktop: the installer app (<app> installer (…).app) and a <app> installer.zip. Send the app to anyone, or double-click it yourself to test. The .zip is the same installer, ready to host on the web — tell the wizard where you'll put it, and that becomes the download visitors get if they don't already have SideStep.

The wizard's second screen: 'Installer created', showing the installer and its .zip are on the Desktop, and a field asking where you'll host the installer.

3. Copy a one-click button for your website

The wizard hands you ready-to-paste HTML. The download link and the button's styling are clearly-marked variables at the top (INSTALLER_URL, BUTTON_CLASS, BUTTON_STYLE) — set BUTTON_CLASS to your site's own button class and it matches your design. If a visitor already has SideStep, the button opens straight to your app; if not, it downloads the installer that walks them through setup first.

The wizard's third screen: the generated one-click-button HTML with a SETTINGS block at the top, a Copy HTML button, and a 'Copied to clipboard' confirmation.

The one-click button

Here's a live example — this button installs Magnatune (a music player) with SideStep. If you already have SideStep it opens straight to Magnatune; if not, it offers the Magnatune installer, which installs SideStep first and walks you through setup.

What your recipients get

Opening the installer walks them through everything, verifying each step for real over USB:

  1. Gets SideStep. Downloads the latest notarized SideStep and installs it (or updates an older copy in place).
  2. Connects their iPhone or iPad over USB and waits for Trust This Computer.
  3. Turns on Developer Mode (iOS 16+), surviving the reboot.
  4. Installs your app — hands off to SideStep, which shows a confirm window; they tap Install, then trust the developer once under Settings ▸ General ▸ VPN & Device Management.

From then on, SideStep keeps the app signed and updated in the background over Wi-Fi — so a sideloaded app behaves like a normal, permanently-installed one.

SideStep Wizard is part of SideStep — a small macOS menu-bar app that installs iOS apps onto your own device using your own Apple ID. It is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple.

← Visit the SideStep site