The Pains of iPhone Ad Hoc Beta Testing • Hacker News Board

Re: The Pains of iPhone Ad Hoc Beta Testing

#11

Post by patio11 » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 5:48 PM UTC

gte910h wrote: post #9

patio11 wrote: post #7

Interesting. This problem is tractable with better software, and it seems to be well within the capability of a single developer to solve. (Make a dedicated beta client which automates all the stupidity for the end-user, including sniffing GUIDs, downloading your distribution, and reporting errors to you, and a web service for the beta clients to connect to to grab apps, report errors, and cough ensure that your cust…

I actually think it could be sold as a framework completely legally.

I have no doubt it is legal. The competitive position is just suboptimal:

1) I charge money to make iPhone development not suck

2) iPhone development is primarily controlled by Apple, a company with ...

3) ... smart people who have ...

4) ... more money than God and ...

5) ... could teach Japanese electronics manufacturers about user experience while ...

6) ... making hundreds of millions off the iPhone ...

7) ... justifying making any improvement available free, and probably

8) ... announcing it at MacWorld, to the resounding cheers of their hundreds-of-thousands strong cult of fanboys who whose very identity is predicated on using Apple products.

Re: The Pains of iPhone Ad Hoc Beta Testing

#12

Post by tienshiao » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 7:29 PM UTC

sil3ntmac wrote: post #5

"Over 10% of our testers gave us the wrong number as their UDID." It's not that hard. There's a free app you can put on your device that will email your UDID to where ever you want, or you can just copy it over from iTunes/XCode. I haven't ever had a client give me the wrong UDID (they have given me the same UDID twice though, forgetting that I already have that device in the database). The hardest part usually is th…

You can manage your provisioning profiles more easily through XCode -> Window -> Organizer.

It'll list your profiles by name and expiration date. You can click on them to see more details, and also delete them from there. You'll stil need to update your project manually after you've swapped out the provisioning profile.

Re: The Pains of iPhone Ad Hoc Beta Testing

#13

Post by tienshiao » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 7:36 PM UTC

A couple tips to address some of his issues:

Issue: .app directory is browsable, don't use Vista to decompress.

Solution: Package your app as an .ipa. It is now no longer a directory, and your use can drag and drop this into iTunes. iTunes will handle the decompression. I usually send the following link to the users to help them through the install: http://www.innerfence.com/howto/install-iphone-application-a...

Issue: user needs to delete old version in order install new version. Can't test upgrades.

Solution: Increment your Bundle Version for each version.

Re: The Pains of iPhone Ad Hoc Beta Testing

#14

Post by eelco » Tue, Sep 29, 2009, 8:02 PM UTC

tienshiao wrote: post #13

A couple tips to address some of his issues: Issue: .app directory is browsable, don't use Vista to decompress. Solution: Package your app as an .ipa. It is now no longer a directory, and your use can drag and drop this into iTunes. iTunes will handle the decompression. I usually send the following link to the users to help them through the install: http://www.innerfence.com/howto/install-iphone-application-a... Issu…

Yep. These are all things that simply take time to learn. It seems the author is just bit a inexperienced in these and mostly wanted to blow off steam. I was also annoyed by these things, but that's what drove me to figure out a better way and/or automate them. I added the same tips (and some more) as a comment to the blog.