Right now, the only way I can test my app on a device is to physically plug it into my laptop, and build/deploy from xcode directly to it. Is there any way I can do this remotely without physically plugging the device into my mac?
To second what Moshe and Clay said, you can use a number of services that provide over-the-air distribution.
TestFlight is a fully-featured service that provides team and beta campaign management in addition to over-the-air distribution. It is a hosted service so there is no setup.
Hockey is similar in its execution and does a great job as well. I haven't used Hockey, so I can't speak to it's full feature set.
Full disclosure, I am one of the mobile devs on TestFlight.
You cannot install an app without physically connecting it to your mac until it is under development phase.Second way is to create a build and then install that build in your iPhone through iTunes,so Xcode is not required.But this is generally used to show intermediate builds to Client.So you will have to continue following the same process my friend...
This is a good question and the unfortunate answer is that this is really not possible. You can try Ad Hoc builds as an alternative or a service called TestFlight.
An alternative to TestFlight is Hockey, but it's more work. I use TestFlight, and I like it. A friend uses Hockey with good results.
Related
We're trying to automate the release of our app to the Mac App Store. I've been trying to achieve this using fastlane. I managed to get this tool working for submitting the apps' metadata (release notes, screenshots etc).
I can also build the app using the gym module, however this results in a .app and not in a .pkg that is needed for submission to the App Store. Even when I use
export_method: "package"
I cannot imagine I'm the only one trying to achieve this, but I cannot find an answer if it is possible at all. And if possible, how to achieve this.
I have a (old) work in progress PR made for this - https://github.com/fastlane/fastlane/pull/12195. Majority of our users are mobile so it has been hard for me to get testing on this :). If you'd like to comment on that PR I would be happy to revive it and work with you on making this work for you!
TestFlight is a welcome change for iOS. It makes distributing beta versions painless for both the developer and the testers.
Does Apple support TestFlight for Mac OS as well? I've done quite a bit of searching and haven't found anything conclusive one way or the other.
We have an OS X app store app that turns out to have an install problem with Yosemite. We failed to do a first install test against Yosemite, so we missed the problem.
I developed a fix and would love to have some new users try it out. It's petty complex, difficult and disruptive to have current users delete the entire "container" directory and kill the preferences process in order to simulate a fresh install.
I also don't like the idea of distributing an unlocked version of our app. If that gets out, it could damage sales of the app store app.
I've done things like added an expiration date to a test app (weak protection) or created developer ID builds that will only run on machines from a specific list of MAC addresses. The last approach works, but it's tedious and painful to maintain, and requires that the tester give up uniquely identifiable information about their machines.
I'd really like the ability to create apps that will only run on beta tester's machines, like TestFlight does for iOS.
This is a developer question more than a code question. It isn't a great fit for SO, but I can't think of a better Stack Exchange site to post it. If anybody has a suggestion of a better site to post the question I'm happy to move it there.
This document at Apple Developer explains it.
It says you should register the testers' devices and generate a provisioning profile that includes them. Which means, theoretically, the app won't run on any device not in the list.
Here is the strange thing about it however: I have two Mac computers and I didn't register either of them with my provisioning profile (in fact the list of registered devices is empty right now), but I can run the exported app image on both easily. The app is sandboxed and signed, ready for App Store distribution, but nevertheless it runs on unregistered computers. It might be that with an empty device list it allows to run on any, or it might be that I'm doing something wrong with code signing.
I will update the answer once I figure this out.
Good news for everyone (including me) waiting for TestFlight for Mac - it just got announced on WWDC21.
Unfortunately, it might take another few months until it is out of beta and publicly available for everyone. But since this question is almost more than 6 years old, its just a fraction!
I"ll update the answer if there are more details available
Update
TestFlight on Mac will be available to download on the Mac App Store. It will be similar to the iOS version of TestFlight offering almost the same functionality to both developers and testers.
It supports both native Mac apps and iOS apps on Apple Silicon!
It is now available.
TestFlight is not available for Mac apps.
source: https://testflight.apple.com/
😕
When developing online game I would really like to avoid supporting different protocol versions. The server can check the version of a client and deny login until the client gets updated. But the problem here is that I need the app update to become available simultanously at the same time on AppStore and Google Play.
Is it possible to do? How do you solve such versioning problems?
Well, I am not sure how it works for the GooglePlayStore but if you choose Developer Release instead of automatic then you could just release it in the moment it approves on the GooglePlayStore and about 30mins. later your iOS app will be online and available as well. That's what I'd do.
For those distributing Mac apps outside the Mac App Store, how are you planning to support updating and sandboxing? I'm guessing most people's answers for the time being is that they're not, but I hope that eventually non-MAS apps could be sandboxed just like MAS apps.
To use Sparkle, your app would need network access, which could be granted, as well as the ability to overwrite itself in Applications. Currently you could do this with the com.apple.security.temporary-exception.files.absolute-path.read-write entitlement, but that's not a good solution. It will likely go away, and even if it doesn't there's little point in sandboxing an app if you're going to give it full filesystem read-write access as well as network access.
Has anyone already gone down this path and found a good solution? I ask because I try to keep my MAS build and my non-MAS build as identical as possible, and I'm currently looking at having my MAS build sandboxed and my non-MAS build not.
In a conversation started by #chockenberry on twitter, #andy_matuschak responded favorably to creating an XPC service for Sparkle.
I have a pull request open on GitHub that actually creates the XPC service. Hopefully, this will get incorporated into Sparkle soon.
We actually have two versions of our app: one for our own web site and one for the app store.
I recommend using Sam Deane's approach which you can find in his GitHub repository. It works well for us.
Not yet.
As of 1.15 Sparkle does not support sandboxing, and the patch that is floating around has a vulnerability that allows complete bypass of sandbox security.
I am currently experimenting with programming for my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (running Symbian 9.4). Setting up the development environment (Carbide C++) was already a huge pain, but now that I am actually able to build something the pain doesn't stop! It seems there is an incredible overhead involved when you actually want to test an application on the phone. But I really hope somebody more experienced than me knows some easy way to do it.
If I understood right every application has to be signed. I can sign applications myself, so this is not a problem and it seems to work fairly well. But then it seems not all capabilities are available if I do this, and the one I need is amongst them. So now I have the option to buy a publisher ID to get a developer certificate (current cost: 200$ - no thanks) or I have to upload the application every time to symbiansigned! Every time I change the code and want to test on the phone I have to upload the thing using a stupid web form!
But now I was excited to find that you can do some remote debugging stuff with a thing called TRK (maybe this spares me the signing?). I hoped that I could use this to connect Carbide and my phone. But this doesn't quite work. My phone doesn't show the application required for this connection although it installed properly. I had a look at the supported Symbian version number and it seems to be 9.2, so not mine :( Stuck again?
And the emulator is no option because it doesn't support sensors and cameras :(
So what am I doing wrong (and sure there must be something)? Is the only way to test my app on the phone to actually upload it every time, wait for it to getting signed, download it again, install it and test - just to see it didn't work and that I have to repeat this process over and over again?? PLEASE no...
follow the instructions here http://www.forum.nokia.com/Distribute/Packaging_and_signing.xhtml to get yourself a free certificate for 5 testing devices, then you can use this certificate to sign your applications directly without using open sign.
When you use TRK, your application is still installed on the phone (in background, with so called silent installation API - by the way, you can use it too, but it's offtopic), because the only eligible way for a binary to get into the phone is the Installer Service. So you still need some certificate. All three options to get certificate mentioned here are ok, though the last, free one (from Mahdi Hijazi), I suppose, is the preferred. :)
Please go to
http://www.opda.net.cn/register.php
then apply for a OPDA Developer Certificate and download signer tool from the site and use it to sign your symbian applications.