I was wondering if there was a way within an app code to determine if the app is real (in the iTunes store) versus test? The reason is that I have every part of in app purchase resolved. However when verifying the receipt you must send it to either https://buy.itunes.apple.com/verifyReceipt if live or https://sandbox.itunes.apple.com/verifyReceipt if just a test.
Currently I switch the setting prior to submission but I know such an approach can easily fail with a sandbox version being submitted by accident. I would like the code to determine which URL to use.
You could have it set using some #ifdefs and the different build configurations Xcode can create (i.e. debug vs. release vs. distribution).
You should use a #define APP_STORE, or something like that, and check with #ifdef. Then, in your build script to build your app store submission from scratch (you do have a one-step build script, right?), just have it automatically define APP_STORE, and you'll never forget.
Related
How can we make the flutter app to make automatic update whenever we release a new version of the app into the store. but I don't want to use the pop up to alert the user to update I want to update automatically without letting the user even know we update it.
As said in the comment, if you publish to Google Playstore or iOs AppStore, they will handle the updates for you. You just have to upload the new version (just set the release number correctly) and, when the validation is done, their system will notify/update the app. I don't know how other stores behave, but I'm guessing that's the standard behaviour now.
Instead, if you need to bypass the store functionality and perform the update "by yourself", I don't think that is gonna be a simple task. Apple simply doesn't allow installation from other sources than their store, so I fear it may be simply impossible. On Android, on the other hand, I know that's possible, but it will require some user interaction beforehand, since the "installation from unknown source" authorization must be provided to the app that downloads/opens your .apk file, and the procedure may vary from a device to another, so I fear there won't be a single mechanism that will work everywhere.
In any case, the base mechanism will probably require some HTTP GET by your app towards some webserver that will reply with the latest version: the app should then compare the received version number with its own, and then proceed to the download of the package (the URL for the download can be provided along with the latest version number). After that, you have to manage somehow to install/update the downloaded file.
I personally used this approach with Flutter on Windows 7 and newer, where there are no store constraints and I can simply run and download the .msi or .exe file for the latest version, and works just fine.
I think you are looking for the concept of codepush which was loved by many React Native developers.
In Flutter, I think you might want to check out flutter_code_push if this fits your needs.
As part of our software development life cycle, we want to make sure that the binary we test in house before pushing to iTunes, is the same as the binary that we push to iTunes. I know that sounds really silly, but it's a matter of checks and balances in a mid size company, so that the testers can be sure the coders didn't add in anything after testing occurred.
So is there a way to run a signed/certed app on a device that's not jail broken? Or is there a way to verify that an IPW is the exact identical code in the zip that gets pushed to iTunes?
Or possibly a way to accomplish my goals with a different way?
We have a valid developer account and around 15 different devices that are not jail broken. Would prefer to test with them left stock and not jail broken.
If you compile your app for distribution using an ad-hoc profile you can later take that archive and resign it with the appstore profile and upload it.
You can't however upload an application that was compiled with an development certificate.
A binary signed to go to the App Store cannot be run on devices via the normal ways. You can test the code by having the developers create an Ad Hoc build. This will have the same functionality as the App Store version, but you can test it.
Unfortunately, when the app is recompiled for the App Store, more code can be added.
Do you not have access to the code to test? If you must, you can have them create an adhoc in front of you, test it, and then recompile for the app store all in front of you. Seems a bit overkill, however.
There is with another trick:
first test you code for functionality's, buggs in normal way.
Than push the code to AppStore, but set the release date farther with 3 weeks, while your testers are validating it is that what they tested last time or not. Somewhere here, I have read that possibility forgot where. Never tried!
I am using TestFlight - must I remove all the source code from my solution or is it okay just to comment out any calls to TestFlight before submitting to App Store?
The testflight library adds quite a bit of weight to your app, and it would seem sensible to remove it from your app store builds if you are not using it. Commenting out your calls is also rather cumbersome.
You can use a different build configuration which uses preprocessor definitions to prevent your testflight calls unless you have built for beta, this configuration can also exclude the test flight library from non-beta builds.
This also means that your simulator runs don't call testflight either, which is usually a good thing.
There is a good explanation of the process here which also refers this other question here on Stack Overflow.
I have an application already on the store and would like to release an update. Since my app deals with databases and I've had to change some parts of it, I would like to ensure that the update does not affect the existing functionality in any way once the user updates from the App Store.
What I did was this - install the first version of my app on my device. Changed the update's version in info.plist to 1.1 and run it via xcode (and install on my device). But what happens by doing this is some of the changes I made to the XIBs do not show up. It looks as if the app was only half-updated (if you know what I mean)
Is there any way to update an existing app programmatically without having to go through the app store and then find out it could lead to a disaster?!
Thanks for any help!
I would double check your build configuration. Between building the two versions of the app, I would recommend a "Clean All" just to be safe. The process you described works to verify updates. The only other alternative I can come up with is to create Ad-hoc distributions of both versions of your app, and install those.
The title say's almost all. What I have is short lived server processes that serves a web-based javascript test suite with optionally accompanying back-ends for integration tests (see here for how it's done). I'm looking for a better way to direct the iPhone Emulator's Safari to the URL given.
More, possibly optional background:
Up until iOS SDK 4.0 I've managed to control XCode using AppleScript to start a specially prepared PhoneGap project in this fashion:
AppleScript (referred to as "AS") starts XCode (referred to as "XC")
AS instructs XC to load the previously set up PhoneGap project.
AS instructs XC to launch the PhonePap project.
The PhoneGap project will redirect to the server serving the test suite, and the test suite runs.
In iOS 4.0 SDK, this only works the first round, the next time the test suite runner tries to make XC do the above routine, it fails requesting the previous run to be stopped. And I can't for the life of me find a way to stop the debugging session with AS [1], so I can only run one test suite without manual intervention, witch is pretty much a show stopper for us since we rely a lot on nightly test runs.
Now, what I really want to do is just start the iPhone Emulator, and then start Safari on the emulator with the possibility of sending an arbitrary URL to the emulated Safari.
What I've found so far is iphonesim, but I'm running into this issue and can't get it to properly start pre-compiled apps. A way to circumvent this issue in iphonesim would also be a good way forward.
[1] I'd accept a way to do this as a valid answer too.
I have a very different solution for you.
Write a custom iPhone app that just contains a web view. It will behave pretty much the same as MobileSafari. Then, embed a little web server in the app.
You can then control your app by calling specific urls on that server.
This is a very simple app. Will take you 30 minutes to put together.
This is easily integrated in Xcode or a bigger (Apple) script. You can use commands like curl to open URLs.
This is possible now:
xcrun simctl openurl booted "https://google.com"
https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/198798/144271
Post scriptum: how it was solved in the end.
A while after I asked this question, a user at github added a comment in issue 3 that what you need for iphonesim to work correctly is to give the absolute path to the application to start. So now we have a prebuilt PhoneGap project where a script modifies the contents of the www directory inside build/Debug-iphonesimulator/PhoneGap.app. The absolute path to this directory is then sent to iphonesim, starting up the project now pointing towards the correct server. No AppleScript and no XCode (except for the initial build). The test suite now takes 1/7 of the time it took to run earlier.