I am going to develop an iOS application for a customer of mine and I would like to make him constantly up-to-date during the development phase. In order to do so, I am looking for a tool which should allow me to share the current status of the application with my customer. The goal is to allow my customer to personally run the latest prototype of the application on a kind of simulator/emulator or on his own device (either iPhone or iPad).
Is that possible? Is there a tool (or a set of tools) which I can use to do so?
In case it is not possible, as far as I know the only alternative is to take screenshots or record videos, right? Just let me know if I am mistaken.
Thanks a lot!
The best way, I know of, is TestFlight.
This allows you to upload an AdHoc build of your app to there server and allow you customer to download it.
They even supply an SDK which can alert the user that a new version of the app is available also you add some debug functionality to the build (reading crash reports).
If you want to do, one elegant solution would be to use a continuous integration server to pull the code from your repository, make an adhoc build and place it somewhere publicly accessible.
The whole solution can take some time to set up and depends quite a lot on how is your development environment. In my company we are actually doing it with Jenkins and some shell scripting. If you Google a little bit about continuous integration of iOS projects with Jenkins you'll find some information.
Might not be the best way to do it, but I can't trust online repositories like TestFlight.
Not the easiest but rather secure workaround for this;
Get your customers device into your developer account
Create your new development provisioning profiles (consisting that device)
Distribute your application via Archive, and save it
Send your IPA to your customer
Related
As the title suggest I need to be able to showcase a react native app continuously during development every other day with a client which is not technical orientated. The alternativs I see is,
* Sharing a git/github repo for them to download and run through Xcode
which is not a possibility.
*Screen record while i run the simulation on my computer and share it
with the client
Both of these options seems subpar and not optimal.
How do I do this in a better way?
I am sorry if this seems like an open ended question and if you have suggestions on how to better formulate this question please provide it.
You can upload the binary to TestFlight, which allows your client to download and use the app instantly.
You can also consider over-the-air update systems like Expo or CodePush which allows you to deliver Javascript-only updates automatically to your clients when they open the app (just like a web app).
I'm developing a mobile app (using React Native for that matter), and I'd like to have one of the members of my team try it out.
With Android, I can just share the apk with them. Is there something similiar in iOS?
There is a bunch of tools to do this. Test Flight is not the easiest way to share a build because you need to submit it to the app store, it needs to be processed, pass through all the checks before someone can download it.
Whilst you should definitely use Test Flight to deploy official test versions, an internally used tool for alpha and beta versions is quicker and easier.
I would suggest a tool like Fabric Beta (currently owned by Google), which is a free app deployment + analytics tool. you will need to add some code to allow it to work but it is a simple process. It comes with a program to help deploy and you can plug it into most CI software.
You will need to ensure you have the device UUID's of people in your internal team to sign the application for their devices.
Test Flight is what you're looking for.
First though you need to add the UDID of your team member's device to the provisioning profile used to create the .ipa (iOS equivalent of an APK). But after that, just follow the information and tutorial(s) at the provided link.
I am aware that we can block safari content using swift code. I am interested in finding out if we can restrict install of certain apps from AppStore using similar approach ?
Also, is it possible if we can restrict a user from deleting the app from device (not from phone settings but from code) ? Even if Apple does not allow that to publish such app, I am looking for a solution as a part of research.
There are two things you mentioned.
First, can restrict install of certain apps from AppStore
Using Swift code I feel there are no Public API provided by Apple for the developer till now but there is a similar way that is called Device Enrollment Program.
The Device Enrollment Program (DEP) is part of the Apple Deployment
Programs (ADP), which help businesses and educational institutions
easily deploy and configure iOS and OS X devices. DEP provides a fast,
streamlined way to deploy institutionally owned iPad and iPhone
devices and Mac computers that are purchased directly from Apple or
participating Apple Authorized Resellers or carriers.
For more visit this developer guide.
Second: restrict a user from deleting the app from device
Same response for that, till now no Developer API, but lets say if we see this as a part of research and we develop some POC still, it does not make sense for me at all (It's my device and I install the app for making my life easy and better if I don't want to use it anymore, I need an option to delete it) and I don't think so this will be possible in future as well because the USP for iOS device is user experience and we can't make this like that.
I also want to hear something from others and if possible give the use case why you are looking a solution like that.
I hope this will help.
Is there a way to remvoe TestFlight apps from users that have installed them? Also is there a way that TestFlight can bake into the app some sort of password that the users all have to log in with (in case of a lost phone, we don't want our developement apps exposed).
If left untouched, the provisioning of your apps will eventually expire automatically. Even without the native ability to remove applications with TestFlight there is still something of an expiration date on the application.
That would still leave your question of a "baked in password prompt" and removing the application itself physically from the device.
The first part, the app checking for authentication could be solved by implementing a solution with a more robust SDK that happens to have that sort of security-minded approach. As far as I know, and based on TestFLight's feature grid, this exceeds the abilities of their tool.
The second part, removing the application itself from the device, would be accomplished by using a tool that has the ability to use MDM (Mobile Device Management) for device-level control. Specifically you'd want to look for something that can selectively control a single application, rather than having to apply a blanket MDM policy. Again based on knowledge of TestFlight and based on their web page this is also not something TestFlight is capable of.
There are solutions out there that will give you exactly what you are asking about - easy beta testing with the added ability to force the app to check in and re-authenticate as well as the ability to remove applications from the device when you're done testing. If you hit your search engine of choice you can find a few tools that will give you a "yes" to all of your questions here. The list is very short so they're easy to find. :)
If it is at all helpful to you, I am associated with one of those companies, AppBlade, and would be happy to answer questions about this sort of thing. We're at https://AppBlade.com and you're welcome to give us a call or even log into the tool to see how it works for yourself.
Unfortunately you can't delete apps that are already installed on the device via TestFlight, unless you do it on the device itself. As for the password, TestFlight doesn't exactly support that either. You could however put a passcode lock feature in all of the Beta versions of your apps through your code. Sorry thats probably not the answers that you wanted to hear, but TestFlight is still in its early stages.
You are not able to delete apps from a users device, however TestFlight is testing in their 'Area51' an option to force users to update to a new build if there is one available.
If you no longer want testers to access your app you probably could add a new build which justs shows some info screen.
There is a way to expire the builds in the app store connect when you click on build.
Another way if you want to get rid of it as a tested to open the app page and click on stop testing.
I'm about to make an individual iOS dev account, but I would like to share my work with a colleague or two for input that do not have an account (they have Xcode). They will look at the code maybe a bit, but mainly to test the app itself and provide feedback for me. Currently I don't have an account and what I have done is take a screencast of the app in the simulator and send the screencast. Obviously not ideal. So what are my options to share my progress on a daily basis? I think just to have them run in the simulator on their end is fine, until the app is almost complete then maybe on their phone would be good too. Thanks,
rc
A) look at testflight (testflightapp.com) - it's a site which allows you to email ad hoc builds of an app to testers.
B) put your code into version control and give them access. (ie GitHub.com) then they can build it themselves with Xcode onto their devices.
I'd go with A, it gives you more control and the potential for fewer support questions :)
I'm not sure why you would want non-developers looking at your code but I'd that's really needed, option B :)
The type of developer account you get and your ability to share your code are two unrelated issues. Unless you want your colleagues to be able to build your code and install it on test devices, they don't need developer program subscriptions. You can share your code with them in whatever way suits you (give them read access to your version control system), and you can build test versions that they can install on their devices. The only thing they won't be able to do is to build the app themselves for installation on a device.
If the main purpose is for testing, then get an enterprise certificate, sign the app with it and send the ipa file. They will install it and test the app.