Deploying to an iPhone, Debugging, and Testing : Distributing Your Application

After debugging and testing in the iPhone Simulator and on your own device(s), you’ll want to build a deployment version of your app for ad hoc testing by your beta testers (friends, family, etc.) and then a final version for submission to the iTunes App Store.

Ad Hoc Deployment and Testing

Once you’ve tested your app as much as you can, the next step is to hand it off to some additional beta testers to make sure they understand how to use it and don’t stumble across any bugs. Apple’s number one reason for rejecting apps submitted to the App Store is crashing bugs they find during the review process—it’s worth your time to make sure your app is rock solid before submitting it.

The first step in doing ad hoc testing is to collect the device IDs for each of the test devices and add them in the Provisioning Portal. Note that you’re only allowed 100 ad hoc test devices and they only reset once a year, so make sure that you’re signing up people who will be available to test all of your applications. Once you’ve got the device IDs added, you’ll need to create a Distribution Certificate and use it to create an Ad Hoc Provisioning Profile that includes all of the device IDs. Download that profile and save it someplace safe—you’ll be sending it to each of your testers along with your app.

You don’t want this extra stuff in your released application; it will slow it down or worse. For instance, suppose you left the NSEnableZombie environment variable set to YES. Now when the application ran, released objects would be turned into zombies rather than the objects being returned to available memory. Your application would be sluggish and could be abruptly terminated by the device’s operating system. We get rid of this extra debugging information by building a release version of your app.

To build a release version for ad hoc distribution, you’ll want to create a new scheme (essentially a conveniently named collection of build settings). In the pull-down menu at the top of the window, select New Scheme, give it a name like “Ad hoc distribution,” and pick Launch Scheme from the two choices. This creates a new scheme where we’ll change some build settings, while leaving your original scheme easy to switch back to for additional debugging builds.

In the pull-down menu, select Edit Active Scheme, click Build in the left column, and change the Build Configuration from Debug to Release (Figure 1). Click OK to save the change to the new scheme.

Figure 1. Setting the Build Configuration to Release

Now select your app in the navigation panel on the left and then click Build Settings (Figure 2). Make sure the Base SDK is set to the most recent one available. Under Deployment set the Targeted Device Family to “iPhone”. Set the iOS Deployment Target to the minimum version of iOS that your app requires. Unless you’re using features only available in newer OS versions, iOS 3.0 is probably good, since it will allow anyone whose device is at least updated to iOS 3 to use your app.

Figure 2. The Build Configuration’s settings

Now we’re ready to build the App file that you’ll be sending to your ad hoc testers. Make sure that you’re building for a device rather than the simulator by checking the pull-down menu. Then select Product | Clean Ad Hoc Distribution from the main menu followed by Product | Build Ad Hoc Distribution. You can check the Xcode Preferences to see where your App file was written, but it probably defaulted to Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/workspace-name/Build/Products/Release-iphoneos/app-name. This is the file that you can send to your testers along with the Ad Hoc Distribution Profile that you created earlier. They can just drop both files onto iTunes and then sync their device to start testing.

Distributing Your App via the App Store

To really build the final version of your app for submission to the iTunes App Store, you should check Apple’s current instructions for submitting apps. Complete instructions can be found on the iPhone Developer web site. You must have an iTunes Connect Account if you wish to sell your app on the App Store.

You will want to make another new scheme similar to the one we made in the preceding section, but this time, when creating the scheme, select Distribution Scheme rather than Launch Scheme. This will build an archived version of your app for uploading to iTunes Connect.

In addition to building a release version of your app, if you are submitting it to the App Store, you will also have to create an icon for it in several sizes, upload sample screenshots, write a description of your app, and pick a category for it. Complete instructions are available on Apple’s web site.