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.
Related
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.
I'm building an in-house app that is distributed via the AirWatch app catalog. The app always runs with Guided Access enabled and all devices running it are managed by AirWatch. My questions are regarding auto-update:
Is there a way that AirWatch can force the update immediately or as soon as the device comes back online, without asking for the user's input? If so, how does the app being open affect this behavior? How does guided access being enabled affect this behavior?
Is there a link from AirWatch, perhaps an itms-services:// link, that the app can call to install the new version if a web service had indicated that it's no longer the latest version? If so, how does Guided Access being enabled affect this behavior?
Is there any other good model for remotely updating the app that will spread the update as quickly as possible and under the above conditions? The solution can be using MDM or a custom web service or both combined.
Thanks a lot for your help!!
If your devices are running iOS7 and you have your app Deployment settings set to "Auto" (as opposed to "On-Demand") the device will automatically take the update once it processes the APNs notification to do so. If the device is locked/offline it will typically check for outstanding APNs messages within a minute or so of being unlocked or coming back online.
What I don't know is since your app is in guided access mode if you're receiving a pop-up to install the new version. I've seen previously where if the app that requires an update is open iOS will prompt. What we have done to battle this is embed a check in the app that phones home to see if the app is current. If the app is NOT current the user can't do anything until they update their app.
Regarding a direct-link to the App Catalog to update the app that might get tricky with guided access enabled. Before you even try to tackle that issue understand that the app catalog webclip URL contains the UDID of the device as of AW7.1 (I think). Since the UDID is no longer programmatically accessible code-side AirWatch allows you to push the UDID upon app installation in the Deployment/Application Configuration section. You can embed {DeviceUid} into the key share on the device which will make it accessible for that applciation, hence allowing you to create the appropriate App Store URL within your app.
Good luck
honestly I didn't work with AirWatch. But I don't think that Apple provides a way for automatic update of ad-hoc or enterprise apps.
Well, I can describe a solution for an enterprise app I developed last year. Hope it will help you somehow.
First of all, I made it as a part of our secure website. (a little test flight)
Here's how app update works
When the app launches it sends special request to a server asking if
it is outdated and a new app version is available. (+ servers sends
url for new version installation (with itms-services://))
Then
if update is required, app fires alert with description of new
version, if user taps update, the app opens Safari where the user
is able to install a new version.
We made to different kinds of alert, optional (minor version change) and compulsory(major version change). With later variant user is unable to get rid of alert view, so he has to update the app.
You can update your internal app through the AirWatch Console and applications versioning.
I never used it but I imagine that at the end of the new version process, there is a way to push the updated app to the related devices. If the Push Mode is set to Auto, the user won't have to do anything and the app should be updated. If it is On Demand, the use will have to initiate the process from the App Catalog. From for the latest option, you have the solution to send a notification to the user.
It is also possible to retire or inactivate older versions to only keep the newest one.
If you have access to AirWatch Online Documentation, I recommend you the page Using Add Version for Applications. If you don't, contact your administrator and ask for all the pages located in Mobile Application Management -> Internal Applications and the page Using Add Version for Applications.
You should try it with a single device though ;)
I made an app deployed internally at my company. It is placed outside conference rooms and allows the user to see if it's open, schedule room time, view other rooms, etc. Given its nature and use, the app is always the active one on the device and is placed into guided access mode to prevent passers-by from playing around with it. However, the update process is rather tedious since despite our MDM solution, we have to go around and take each device individually out of guided access mode in order for the app to be updated. I've been looking into supervised mode for each device (using the Apple Configurator tool), but I wanted to ask if there was anyone here with experience trying this who could point me in the right direction in case that idea doesn't bare fruit. Is there perhaps a way to trigger the app (and guided access) to close remotely and open, also remotely, once updated? Naturally, this would go against Apple's guidelines, but this app will never touch the app store, so any solution at all is feasible. I saw a few answers on this site from over two years ago saying it isn't possible, but perhaps something has changed to allow this possibility between then and now seeing as so much has changed around deployment in the past few years.
I would do something like that:
Have a device in supervised mode
Set Guided mode through configuration profile (rather than manually doing it). App Lock payload does that.
And when you need to upgrade the app:
Try to upgrade it without disabling guided mode. As I remember, you can install applications silently on a supervised device. So, there is a chance that it will upgrade it and restart it (because of Guided mode) after that.
If it won't restart the app on upgrade try following:
Remove App Lock profile
Upgrade app
Install App Lock profile again
This should work.
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
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.