TestFlight is an app beta testing platform by developers. It’s been in use for some time but Apple only acquired the service earlier this year when it purchased Burstly – the company responsible for the testing platform. Apple have since redesigned and re-launched TestFlight for use as an integrated iOS 8 app development kit for devs and testers.
Apple started notifying developers that its TestFlight Beta Testing platform is now live and available for immediate use. They’ve also announced developers will be able to invite up to 1000 beta testers to trial their beta iOS apps. This is a fantastic tool for any dev as the bigger the test group the smoother the release is likely to be, hopefully leading to vast downloads of the app.
What makes this so alluring is the fact you can invite up to 1,000 testers by simply sending them an email invitation through iTunes Connect. As soon as your invitation is accepted testers can install your beta app on their iOS devices, get updated builds, and provide feedback – all comfortably within the TestFlight app. However this is not a risk free scenario, glitches within the apps could have serious consequences for the end user.
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There are other beta testing platforms available, one of the most popular being HockeyApp, but TestFlight aims to make the beta testing process simpler and more efficient by removing the need for UDIDs and provisioning profiles. Developers can invite users to test an app with just an email address, not only that, there are built-in tools for both internal and external testing. One assumes TestFlight hopes to dominate over HockeyApp, yet this simply may not be the case due to their current limitation of purely iOS.