TestFlight Owner Burstly Acquired By Apple

[novum]

Bummer...but also exciting, since Adhoc/Beta distributions and access could be massively improved by being handled first-party by Apple. Maybe now it will be!

I've long been using TF for adhoc beta distributions of my iOS apps. Looks like there are only two options left for that:

    * Hockeyapp, starting at $10/month
    * Host your own IPA on S3 or elsewhere. 

The downside with the latter is where TF added value: per-build access settings, notifications, teams, and feedback. You'll have to approximate this now by mucking with which devices are listed in your provisioning profile.

I open-sourced my iOS build script recently. It'll take care of everything for you -- downloads your provisioning profile from Apple's dev center, builds, codesigns, archives, and uploads to S3. https://github.com/splinesoft/SSBuild

[aaronbrethorst]

Apple could massively improve Adhoc and Beta distributions any time they wanted to. They didn't need Burstly or TestFlight for this. In other words, get ready to move off of TF and onto another platform.

[nolanbrown23]

Shameless but relevant plug, I run a free API service to distribute apps via a short url.

If anyone is interested, you can check it out at http://ota.io

[kodeshpa]

Checkout Vessel.io, Offers Beta Distribution + A/B testing for mobile apps

[danielsju6]

Do check out my service AppBlade https://appblade.com, convenient timing that I was about to come out with some competitive pricing for ad-hoc developers.

We're also releasing an open-source tool that uses GitHub releases as a store, gonna release it soon https://github.com/AppBlade/TestHub

[yukif]

Also check out our service DeployGate, which was focused on Android but just have started a new Beta with iOS support this week. If you join for our beta program now, you are eligible to keep everything free, forever. :)

https://deplyogate.com/beta_program

[devd]

Co-founder of vessel.io - We have Android and iOS beta distribution service for free. Happy to help you setup your account.

[MProgrammer]

There's a third option: Continue to use TestFlight. There's no indication that they are going away.

[misteroo]

we built our own. and was really worth the effort. happy not to depend on anyone for this :)

[k-mcgrady]

This could be great if Apple really improves distribution of adhoc builds but I wouldn't hold my breath. After 5 years iTunes Connect still sucks. The dropping of Android support is annoying as I use TestFlight to distribute iOS and Android apps and it made things so much smoother, especially when working with non-technical people.

[LordIllidan]

First time I've heard about it too...and I found Testflight invaluable for sending betas to customers, the experience for both developers and end users was second to none.

Damn, I really hope Apple doesn't screw it up. But if they can integrate it into their iTunes connect platform, I'll be a happy developer.

[kclay]

So that explains why they dropped android support.

[mikeevans]

Android now has first party testing support via the Play Store. I'd imagine it's hard to compete with that.

[doctorpangloss]

Android support is dropped? My CI is uploading APKs just fine, and I can still upload APKs through their web interface.

[ctdonath]

Also resolves the FAQ question about how they expected to make any money when not charging anyone for such a useful service.

[michaelmior]

If anyone happens to be interested, I have a PoC OTA deployment solution I built when I got tired of being asked for regular app builds. It's a Web service designed to run on a Mac and pull from a GitHub repository, run xcodebuild, package the IPA, and let you install it on your device.

I abandoded this because I longer have access to a Mac since I stopped iOS development a while ago, but ping me if you're interested and you want to try to get it to work. It doesn't come close to the features of something like TestFlight, but was designed for in-house use by a team who needs access to bleeding edge builds without developer intervention.

[alecsmart1]

Can you email me. I can't find any info of yours online. Would love to use your solution.

[dirkdk]

OK, my main question to Apple is still, please get rid of the 100 device limit, such a pain that Testflight or any other service didn't have a workaround for. Enterprise licenses is still an uncertain thing to do

[LordIllidan]

Agreed, and you can't even revoke them, they need to be active for a year.

[siavosh]

Wow, interesting news--hopefully for the better. Testflight really made adhoc distribution not completely insane. Excited to see if the partnership with Apple will make it even smoother.

[eddieroger]

Wow, if these comments have taught me anything, it's that there are more OTA installer services than people who will miss TestFlight. Maybe I should even open source mine.

[pirateking]

I wrote my own simple set of shell and ruby scripts (based around xcodebuild) that have helped me automate deployment back since the iOS 3 or 4 days. With some upgrades, they still work perfectly well with iOS 7.

I remember trying TestFlight when they first launched, and going back to my own deploy script instead. Hopefully, this acquisition means an integrated "Deploy" Xcode Action (or maybe even a Bot now?) and easier device registration / removal.

[BenSS]

Funny that I tweeted @ the author this morning since they've written about TestFlight before, wondering if they knew what was up. One way to get an answer when the company isn't talking!

I hope Apple keeps the essentials here, and integrates it with iTunes Connect. They seem to be more interested lately in making it useful!

[Aqua_Geek]

Somehow I don't really see Apple integrating TestFlight into the iTunes Connect mess of an ecosystem.

[joeld42]

maybe they'll integrate itc into testflight instead. :)

[mvelie]

It could also be that apple wanted the other part of Burstly which did advertising, to help support their iAd platform.

[sidcool]

I sometimes wonder if all these acquisitions are done out of paranoia rather than business shrewdness.

[elwell]

Ok fine. Just don't buy PhoneGap.

[MBCook]

Non-native apps? I think that's about the last thing Apple would do right now. I'd bet they'd acquire Tesla and shut the company down only keeping their battery technology before they bought PhoneGap.

[general_failure]

You know its already open source by the name of Cordova right?