TestFlight

Last updated

TestFlight
Original author(s) Benjamin Satterfield
Trystan Kosmynka
Developer(s) Apple Inc.
Stable release
3.3.0 / March 9, 2023;12 months ago (2023-03-09) [1]
Operating system
Available in33 languages [1]
List of languages
English, Arabic, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
Type Application testing service
License Freeware
Website developer.apple.com/testflight/

TestFlight is an online service for over-the-air installation and testing of mobile applications, currently owned by Apple Inc. and only offered to developers within the iOS Developer Program. [2] [3] [4] Developers sign up with the service to distribute applications to internal or external beta testers, who can subsequently send feedback about the application to developers. [4] [5] [6] The TestFlight SDK additionally allows developers to receive remote logs, crash reports and tester feedback. [7]

Contents

TestFlight initially supported testing of Android and iOS applications, but since March 2014, Apple has retracted support for Android. [8] [9] As of 2015, applications must be published for TestFlight using Xcode, and testers must be invited using iTunes Connect. [4]

Developers can also provide a TestFlight invitation code to testers via email or a web page. [10] When the link is opened on an iPhone with the TestFlight app installed, a tester can directly install the beta app on their device. Developers can build beta tester groups directly using the App Store and Xcode integration and publicize these invitation links.

After invitation, up to 100 internal testers (with up to 30 devices each) and 10,000 [11] external beta testers can download and test the application build. Up to 100 apps can be tested at a time, internally or externally. Testers may be grouped and separate builds created for each group. The TestFlight application for iOS notifies testers when new builds are available, features to focus on, and enables sending of feedback. [4]

History

TestFlight was founded by Benjamin Satterfield and Trystan Kosmynka on December 23, 2010, and was designed as a single platform to test mobile applications on Android and iOS devices. [12] It was acquired by Burstly in March 2012, and thereby gained the resources necessary to launch TestFlight Live. [12]

In 2011, Burstly raised $7.3 million from Upfront Ventures, Rincon Venture Partners, Softbank Capital and others. [9] Apple Inc. acquired Burstly in February 2014, and terminated support for Android as of March 2014. [8] [9] Apple also shut down FlightPath (a mobile analytics solution and a replacement to TestFlight Live) and SkyRocket (a mobile application monetization platform) the same month. [9] [13]

On 17 December 2023, several terabytes of pre-release iOS apps were discovered on the Wayback Machine, having been mirrored from 2012 to 2015 when TestFlight's servers had mistakenly made them publicly accessible. It was dubbed the "Teraleak" or "Terascrape", similar to Nintendo's Gigaleak from 3 years prior. [14] This content was later removed from the Internet Archive on January 4, 2024. [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winamp</span> Media player for Microsoft Windows

Winamp is a media player for Microsoft Windows originally developed by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev by their company Nullsoft, which they later sold to AOL in 1999 for $80 million. It was then acquired by Radionomy in 2014, now known as the Llama Group. Since version 2 it has been sold as freemium and supports extensibility with plug-ins and skins, and features music visualization, playlist and a media library, supported by a large online community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xcode</span> IDE including tools for developing software for Apple platforms

Xcode is Apple's integrated development environment (IDE) for macOS, used to develop software for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS. It was initially released in late 2003; the latest stable release is version 15, released on September 18, 2023, and is available free of charge via the Mac App Store and the Apple Developer website. Registered developers can also download preview releases and prior versions of the suite through the Apple Developer website. Xcode includes command-line tools that enable UNIX-style development via the Terminal app in macOS. They can also be downloaded and installed without the GUI.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dashcode</span>

Dashcode was a software application created by Apple Inc. that was included with Mac OS X Leopard and facilitates the development of widgets for Dashboard. It was first included on new MacBooks shipping around the time of May 24, 2006, as part of the Xcode developer tools.

iOS Mobile operating system by Apple

iOS is a mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its smartphones. It was unveiled in January 2007 for the first-generation iPhone, launched in June 2007.

iOS SDK Software development kit for iOS

The iOS SDK, formerly the iPhone SDK, is a software development kit (SDK) developed by Apple Inc. The kit allows for the development of mobile apps on Apple's iOS and iPadOS operating systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">App Store (Apple)</span> App distribution platform by Apple Inc

The App Store is an app marketplace developed and maintained by Apple Inc., for mobile apps on its iOS and iPadOS operating systems. The store allows users to browse and download approved apps developed within Apple's iOS SDK. Apps can be downloaded on the iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, and some can be transferred to the Apple Watch smartwatch or 4th-generation or newer Apple TVs as extensions of iPhone apps.

Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. Dropbox was founded in 2007 by MIT students Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi as a startup company, with initial funding from seed accelerator Y Combinator.

A mobile development framework is a software framework that is designed to support mobile app development. It is a software library that provides a fundamental structure to support the development of applications for a specific environment.

Apache Cordova is a mobile application development framework created by Nitobi. Adobe Systems purchased Nitobi in 2011, rebranded it as PhoneGap, and later released an open-source version of the software called Apache Cordova. Apache Cordova enables software programmers to build hybrid web applications for mobile devices using CSS3, HTML5, and JavaScript, instead of relying on platform-specific APIs like those in Android, iOS, or Windows Phone. It enables the wrapping up of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript code depending on the platform of the device. It extends the features of HTML and JavaScript to work with the device. The resulting applications are hybrid, meaning that they are neither truly native mobile application nor purely Web-based. They are not native because all layout rendering is done via Web views instead of the platform's native UI framework. They are not Web apps because they are packaged as apps for distribution and have access to native device APIs. Mixing native and hybrid code snippets has been possible since version 1.9.

Flipboard is a news aggregator and social network aggregation company based in Palo Alto, California, with offices in New York, Vancouver, and Bejiing. Its software, also known as Flipboard, was first released in July 2010. It aggregates content from social media, news feeds, photo sharing sites, and other websites, presents it in magazine format, and allows users to "flip" through the articles, images, and videos being shared. Readers can also save stories into Flipboard magazines. As of March 2016 the company claims there have been 28 million magazines created by users on Flipboard. The service can be accessed via web browser, or by a Flipboard application for Microsoft Windows and macOS, and via mobile apps for iOS and Android. The client software is available at no charge and is localized in 21 languages.

Submissions for mobile apps for iOS are subject to approval by Apple's App Review team, as outlined in the SDK agreement, for basic reliability testing and other analysis, before being published on the App Store. Applications may still be distributed ad hoc if they are rejected, by the author manually submitting a request to Apple to license the application to individual iPhones, although Apple may withdraw the ability for authors to do this at a later date.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xamarin</span> American software company

Xamarin is a Microsoft-owned San Francisco-based software company founded in May 2011 by the engineers that created Mono, Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS, which are cross-platform implementations of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) and Common Language Specifications.

A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on desktop computers, and web applications which run in mobile web browsers rather than directly on the mobile device.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google Play</span> Digital distribution service by Google

Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store or Play Store and formerly Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating system and its derivatives, as well as ChromeOS, allowing users to browse and download applications developed with the Android software development kit (SDK) and published through Google. Google Play has also served as a digital media store, offering games, music, books, movies, and television programs. Content that has been purchased on Google Play Movies & TV and Google Play Books can be accessed on a web browser and through the Android and iOS apps.

Microsoft mobile services are a set of proprietary mobile services created specifically for mobile devices; they are typically offered through mobile applications and mobile browser for Windows Phone platforms, BREW, and Java. Microsoft's mobile services are typically connected with a Microsoft account and often come preinstalled on Microsoft's own mobile operating systems while they are offered via various means for other platforms. Microsoft started to develop for mobile computing platforms with the launch of Windows CE in 1996 and later added Microsoft's Pocket Office suite to their Handheld PC line of PDAs in April 2000. From December 2014 to June 2015, Microsoft made a number of corporate acquisitions, buying several of the top applications listed in Google Play and the App Store including Acompli, Sunrise Calendar, Datazen, Wunderlist, Echo Notification Lockscreen, and MileIQ.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thoughts on Flash</span> Open letter published by Steve Jobs

"Thoughts on Flash" is an open letter published by Steve Jobs, co-founder and then-chief executive officer of Apple Inc., on April 29, 2010. The letter criticizes Adobe Systems' Flash platform and outlines reasons why the technology would not be allowed on Apple's iOS hardware products. The letter drew accusations of falsehood, hypocrisy, and ulterior motive. In retrospect many publications came to agree with Jobs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Appcelerator</span> Privately-held mobile technology company

Appcelerator is a privately held mobile technology company based in San Jose, California. Its main products are Titanium, an open-source software development kit for cross-platform mobile development, and the Appcelerator Platform.

Firebase, Inc. is a set of backend cloud computing services and application development platforms provided by Google. It hosts databases, services, authentication, and integration for a variety of applications, including Android, iOS, JavaScript, Node.js, Java, Unity, PHP, and C++.

Crashlytics was a Boston, Massachusetts-based software company founded in May 2011 by entrepreneurs Wayne Chang and Jeff Seibert. Crashlytics helps collecting, analyzing and organizing app crash reports.

Instabug is a software company that provides bug reporting, app performance monitoring, crash reporting, in-app chats, and user surveys for mobile apps. The company was founded in 2014.

References

  1. 1 2 "TestFlight on the App Store". App Store. March 9, 2023. Retrieved April 3, 2023.
  2. ↑ Turner, James (December 12, 2011). Developing Enterprise iOS Applications: iPhone and iPad Apps for Companies and Organizations. "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". ISBN   978-1-4493-2583-1.
  3. ↑ Yeung, Ken (February 21, 2014). "Apple confirms that it has acquired TestFlight creator Burstly". The Next Web .
  4. 1 2 3 4 "TestFlight". Apple Developer. Retrieved April 3, 2023.
  5. ↑ Esposito, Dino (May 14, 2012). Architecting Mobile Solutions for the Enterprise. Microsoft Press. ISBN   978-0-7356-7336-6.
  6. ↑ Manning, Jonathon; Buttfield-Addison, Paris; Nugent, Tim (December 10, 2014). Swift Development with Cocoa: Developing for the Mac and IOS App Stores. "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". ISBN   978-1-4919-0970-6.
  7. ↑ Murray, Jeff W. (July 26, 2012). Game Development for iOS with Unity3D. CRC Press. ISBN   978-1-4398-9220-6.
  8. 1 2 Garun, Natt (January 26, 2015). "Apple to close the old standalone TestFlight beta testing service next month". The Next Web .
  9. 1 2 3 4 Perez, Sarah; Lawler, Ryan; Etherington, Darrell (February 21, 2014). "TestFlight Owner Burstly Acquired By Apple". TechCrunch . AOL.
  10. ↑ Jain, Ashutosh (June 27, 2019). "TestFlight App | 65+ Redeem Invitation Codes [2022 List]". Tiny Quip. Retrieved December 3, 2022.
  11. ↑ Miller, Chance (July 31, 2017). "Apple expands TestFlight tester limit to 10,000 users". 9to5Mac . Retrieved September 15, 2017.
  12. 1 2 Constine, Josh (March 5, 2012). "Why Did TestFlight Sell To Burstly? "We Couldn't Change The App Ecosystem Alone"". TechCrunch . AOL.
  13. ↑ Lunden, Ingrid (March 13, 2014). "After Apple Acquisition, Burstly's SkyRocket Users Get 90-Day Notice". TechCrunch . AOL.
  14. ↑ "Apple TestFlight servers from 2012 to 2015 leak, containing terabytes of data". Eurogamer.net. December 18, 2023.
  15. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/https://d193ln56du8muy.cloudfront.net/ipas/

See also

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.