Distributing Applications

When you’re ready to distribute your application for testing or for general distribution through the App Store, you need to create an archive of the application using a distribution provisioning profile, and send it to application testers or submit it to iTunes Connect. This chapter shows how to perform these tasks.

Publishing Your Application for Testing

After testing and tuning your application yourself or with the assistance of your teammates, it’s always a good idea to perform wider testing with a representative sample of your application’s potential users. Such testing may reveal issues that surface only with particular usage patters. Incorporating a few nondeveloper users in your testing strategy lets you expose your application to a variety of usage styles, and, if such usage produces crashes in your application, allows you to collect the crash reports (also known as crash logs) from those users, to help you resolve those execution problems.

An iOS application in development can run only on devices with provisioning profiles generated by the application developer. As iPhone Developer Program members, you and your fellow team members install these files on your devices as part of your development process (as described in “Managing Devices and Digital Identities”). To include users that are not of your team (also known as testers) in your testing strategy, you must add them as part of your team in the iPhone Provisioning Portal and issue them test provisioning profiles (also known as ad-hoc provisioning profiles), which allow them to install on their devices applications that have not been published to the App Store.

“Publishing Your Application for Testing” illustrates the process of adding users as testers and delivering your test application to them.

Figure 9-1  Adding testers to your team

To help testers obtain the information you need to add them to your testing program and to show them how to send you crash logs, you can send them the information in “Instructions for Application Testers.”

The remainder of this chapter describes the steps you need to perform to add testers to your team and shows how to import the crash logs they send you into the Organizer.

Adding Application Testers to Your Team

To add iOS users to your team as testers:

1. Obtain the testers’ device IDs.

   The easiest way to obtain this information is through email. Have your tester follow the instructions for sending their device ID to you in “Sending Your Device ID to a Developer.”

2. Add the testers’ device IDs to the Portal.

   Tip: Use the testers‚Äô email addresses as the device name.

3. If you already have a testing provisioning profile for your application in the Portal, add the testers’ device IDs to it. Otherwise, create the profile with these characteristics:

   Distribution method	Ad Hoc
   Profile name	<Application_Name> Testing Profile
   App ID	Appropriate application ID for the application being tested
   Devices	Testers’ device IDs

4. Download the testing profile and install it in the Xcode Organizer.

   Drag the <Profile_Name>.mobileprovision file to the Provisioning Profiles list under IPHONE DEVELOPMENT.

Adding the iTunes Artwork to Your Application

Test versions of your application should contain artwork iTunes uses to identify your application. Otherwise, when users add your application to their iTunes library, iTunes uses generic artwork for it, as shown in Figure 9-2.

Figure 9-2  Generic iTunes artwork for test applications

The iTunes artwork your testers see should be your application‚Äôs icon. This artwork must be a 512 x 512 JPEG or PNG file named iTunesArtwork. Note that the file must not have an extension.

After generating the file of your application’s icon, follow these steps to add it to your application:

1. Open your project in Xcode.

2. In the Groups & Files list, select the Resources group.

3. Choose Project > Add to Project, navigate to your iTunesArtwork file, and click Add.

4. In the dialog that appears, select the ”Copy items” option and click Add.

Archiving Your Application for Testing

To archive your application for distribution to your testers:

1. Set the Code Signing Identity build setting to a test provisioning profile.

2. In the Project window Overview toolbar menu, set Active Executable to a device.

3. Choose Build > Build and Archive.

Sending Your Application to Testers

To send your application to testers:

1. In the Archived Applications list in the Organizer, select the application archive you want to send to testers, and click Share Application.

2. Click E-Mail.

   In the email message, provide your testers information they need to test your application.

Importing Crash Logs from Testers

To add tester crash logs to the Organizer to view their symbol information, drag the crash logs to the Crash Logs group under the iPhone Development section.

Instructions for Application Testers

This section provides instructions to testers about the procedures to follow to test your iOS applications on their devices. An application tester is a potential user of your application who wants to test it before it’s released through the App Store.

You may send these instructions, along with any special tasks needed to test your application, to customers interested in testing your application.

Sending Your Device ID to a Developer

Before a developer can send you an application for testing, they must register your device with Apple under their application-testing program.

To send your device ID to a developer for test-program registration:

1. Launch iTunes.

2. Connect your device to your computer.

3. Select the device in the Devices list.

4. In the Summary pane, click the Serial Number label. It changes to Identifier.

5. Choose Edit > Copy.

6. Email your device identifier to the developer. Be sure to include your name and device name in the email.

Installing an Application for Testing

After being registered in a developer’s testing program, the developer sends you an archive of the test application. You need to install the archive into iTunes to run the application on your device.

To install the test application on your device:

1. In the Finder, double-click the application archive, <Application_Name>.ipa.

   The application appears in the iTunes Applications list.

2. Sync your device.

   If the version of iOS on your device is earlier than the test application can run on, you need to update your device with the current release of iOS.

Sending Crash Reports to a Developer

When the application you’re testing crashes, iOS creates a record of that event. The next time you connect your device to iTunes, iTunes downloads those records (known as crash logs) to your computer. To help get the problem fixed, you should send crash logs of the application you’re testing to its developer.

Sending Crash Reports from Macs

To send crash logs to developers:

1. In the Finder, open a new window.

2. Choose Go > Go to Folder.

3. Enter ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice.

4. Open the folder named after your device’s name.

5. Select the crash logs named after the application you’re testing.

6. Choose Finder > Services > Mail > Send File.

7. In the New Message window, enter the developer‚Äôs email address in the To field and <application_name> crash logs from <your_name> (for example, MyTestApp crash logs from Anna Haro) in the Subject field.

8. Choose Message > Send.

9. In the Finder, you may delete the crash logs you sent to avoid sending duplicate reports later.

Sending Crash Reports from Windows

To send crash logs to developers, enter the crash log directory (Listing 9-1 and Listing 9-2) in the Windows search field, replacing <user_name> with your Windows user name.

Listing 9-1  Crash log storage on Windows Vista

C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\Apple computer\Logs\CrashReporter/MobileDevice

Listing 9-2  Crash log storage on Windows XP

C:\Documents and Settings\<user_name>\Application Data\Apple computer\Logs\CrashReporter

Open the folder named after your device‚Äôs name and send the crash logs for the application you‚Äôre testing in an email message using the subject-text format <application_name> crash logs from <your_name> (for example, MyTestApp crash logs from Anna Haro) to the application‚Äôs developer.

Publishing Your Application for App Store Distribution

When you’re ready to publish your application for general distribution through the App Store, you submit it to iTunes Connect. This section describes how to prepare your application for submission and how to submit it to iTunes Connect.

Creating a Distribution Profile for Your Application

To create a distribution profile for your application:

1. Create a distribution provisioning profile in the Portal with these characteristics:

   Distribution method	App Store
   Profile name	<Application_Name> Distribution Profile
   App ID	The appropriate application ID for your application.

2. Download the distribution profile and install it in the Xcode Organizer.

   Drag the <Profile_Name>.mobileprovision file to the Provisioning Profiles list under IPHONE DEVELOPMENT in the Organizer.

Archiving Your Application for Submission to iTunes Connect

To create a distribution archive of your application:

1. Set the Code Signing Identity build setting to the distribution profile.

2. In the Overview toolbar menu in the Project window, set Active Executable to a device.

3. Choose Build > Build and Archive.

   Your new application archive appears in the Archived Applications list in the Organizer. Each archive is identified with the date and time it was created.

   

Submitting Your Application to iTunes Connect

To submit your application to iTunes Connect:

1. In the Archived Applications list in the Organizer, select the application archive you want to submit, and click Submit Application to iTunes Connect.

2. In the dialog that appears, enter your iTunes Connect credentials, and click Submit.