Beta Test Over the Air Install before marketplace submission

We might want to consider hosting a beta test if:

The app has a lot of features. If you have a complicated app with a lot of features, this means there’s a higher chance of bugs!

Beta testers can help with this by finding bugs before they’re released. If you are deploying a high quality app, beta testers can help a lot by requesting features that you may not have thought of.

By implementing some of these features before launch, your app can be much higher quality.

What Do I Do Once I Find Some Beta Testers?

Once you have some volunteers, before you can do anything you need to get them to send you their device’s unique id (UDID) so you can build them a copy for their device.

Here are the instructions I usually send the beta testers on how to send me their UDID: Search for the free app called “UDID Tool” on the App store Download it onto your [insert device type here] Run app, click Send email, email to [insert email address here] (and please put your name in the email so I know who it’s from) If you don’t want to make your users download an app to get the UDID, there’s a perhaps easier way: http://www.innerfence.com/howto/find-iphone-unique-device-identifier-udid

How Do we send the Beta Testers an Ad-Hoc Build?

If you haven’t done an Ad-Hoc build before, you might think that it’s some hugely complicated process (like I once did), but never fear: it’s super easy!

Just take the following steps:

Log on to the iPhone Provisioning Portal inside the iPhone Dev Center. Set up an App ID for your App if you haven’t already and make sure you set up your app to use it as well. Go to the Devices tab, and add an entry for each UDID that you receive from your beta testers. Note you’re limited to only 100 per year, so you have to use some discretion in how many people you invite to your beta tests to make sure you don’t run out!

Go to the Provisioning tab, and create a new profile. Choose your App ID and select all of the devices that you want the app to be able to run on.

Follow the instructions in the “Building your Application with Xcode for Distribution” section of the Distribution tab to set your project up to use the new provisioning profile + make an Ad-Hoc build (don’t worry, it’s easy). Build the project with your new Ad-Hoc configuration, and locate the .app that was built. (regarding the 6-th point of building the AdHoc build. There is no need in creating the .ipa file. It is fine to create the app, zip it and send with the .provisioning profile. Drag-and-dopping this app .zip file with the .provisioning profile to the iTunes library does the trick.. so ignore below)

Next, we need to package it so it’s easily installable by your beta testers: Make a folder named “Payload”

Copy your app into the “Payload” folder

Zip up the “Payload” folder

Rename the resulting .zip with an .ipa extension. So if it was “MyApp.zip”, name it “MyApp.ipa”.

Take your .ipa and the .mobileprovision, and zip up both of those so there’s just a single file needed by the beta testers. Update: There’s an even easier way to create the .ipa from the .app than the manual instructions shown above: http://www.kobold2d.com/display/KKSITE/Home

How Can the Beta Testers Install the App?

When I send the beta testers the .zip and .mobileprovision (which I usually do by uploading to my web site and sending them a link rather than clogging their email with a large attachment), I also send them the following instructions: Download [insert link to zip file here]

Unzip the file. There should be two files inside: a file ending with “.ipa” and a file ending with “.mobileprovision”. Drag-and-drop the .mobileprovision file and the .ipa file onto Applications in your iTunes library on Windows, or the iTunes icon on a Mac

In iTunes, select your device and open the Applications tab. Sync applications and the new app should be checked. Sync your device and try out the app!

How Should I Solicit Feedback?

When you send your beta testers the link to the app zip and the instructions, that’s also a good time to explain what sort of feedback you’re looking for.

For example, you could point out particular areas you’re hoping for them to test or particular things you’re uncertain about/are hoping for feedback on. You could even list particular questions you’d like them to answer.

Key questions to ask my beta testers:

Things you like Things you don’t like, or things that are confusing or frustrating Ideas for improvements you have Bugs you may have found (with instructions for how to reproduce if possible) Basically I try to keep the questions to a minimum in order to encourage free-flow thoughts and responses, which I find the most valuable kind of feedback to get.

What Should we do with the beta testers Feedback?

*If all goes well, at this point you should have several emails back from your beta testers with a bunch of feedback. Some feedback will be positive encouragment, some will be bugs they found, and MOST of what you’ll probably get is ideas for new features and improvements.

This is valuable stuff, so the first thing you should do is make sure you keep good track of it!

How Many Responses Should I Expect?

As far as I can tell, the number of responses you get varies a lot based on the people you invite and your app.