how much time does it take to set up my Apple Developer account so I can provision my app and run it on a device? I want to sign up for my Apple Developer account solely so i can provision an app and put it on a device(s) to test.

How long does it take after I submit my payment for the Apple Developer account for Apple to respond?  Is it a mechanized system so I can start putting my app on my device?

Is there any other way to get my app onto a real device in the time while I wait?

I just want to test real code -- which includes Bluetooth functionality -- on my iPad mini.  But apparently I cannot do that until I can provision the app.
But I can't provision the app until I have a dev account.
But, even if I get the dev account I'm wondering if it takes a long time before I can use the dev account.

Any help is much appreciated.
Here's the thing, I don't even have to have a Developer Account to deploy my app to my device.  

Instead, all I had to do was connect the device to my Mac Mini.
When I did that XCode recognizes the device and allows me to deploy and run the app on the device.

I hadn't seen this possibility anywhere, but now that it's possible, it doesn't matter to me so much how long I have to wait for the developer account to be officially set up, since in the wait time I can develop my apps and test them on my locally connected ipad.

As I was writing this answer, I went back to XCode and was building a new app when I suddenly saw the following message:


I couldn't believe it.  I was so excited because I could build apps for my local pad and now suddenly it has limited me until I buy a Dev Account.  Apple, I'm going to buy a dev acct and I obviously cannot deploy or sell my app to anyone without your permission.  Why would you make it this difficult?  Ridiculous!!

EDIT
Wow. Now I just googled for that and found the following Apple Forum :
https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/49304

Someone there mentions that you just have to uninstall other apps from your device and it should work again. I had two other test apps on my device so I uninstalled them and I was able to deploy to my device again.