App Developer Friends: Try TestFlight.

In March last year, after a particularly frustrating few hours dealing with iOS beta device slots, I filed this bug report with Apple. I didn’t realize it at the time, but a solution to this problem was already in motion. In February, Apple had acquired a company called TestFlight. Over the next few months it integrated many of the original TestFlight features into iTunes Connect.

Shortly after iOS 8 was released, Apple opened this new beta testing service to iOS developers. When compared to the previous testing process, it is a major improvement and I am grateful to the team behind it. It is a sign that Apple cares about third party developers and about helping us improve the quality of the software we provide.

TestFlight Features

Notes

There are a number of issues to be aware of:

None of these issues come close to negating the benefits of TestFlight for us as we work on updates Castro and Unread. We’ll be excited to beta test Castro 2 this way as well. App developers should take the time to try it. The availability of a much larger test audience, far better install rates and simplified IAP testing should help you release higher quality apps on the store.

Bonus Tip

Here’s a little tip I picked up from Paul Haddad on Twitter. If you want your app to detect whether it’s running on a TestFlight build, this should do the trick:

[[[[NSBundle mainBundle] appStoreReceiptURL] lastPathComponent] isEqualToString:@"sandboxReceipt”]