How to use Apple’s new TestFlight beta testing

After it’s quiet acquisition by Apple early this year, TestFlight has now been fully integrated in iTunes Connect. In this guest blog, Nick den Engelsman shows you how to distribute your Titanium apps via TestFlight.

How it should work

  1. Create AppStore build
  2. Upload to iTunes connect
  3. Turn on TestFlight beta testing for your build

For me this didn’t work out of the box. When I uploaded my build to iTunes connect I received the following error message:

App does not contain the correct beta entitlement.

A quick Google told me to regenerate all your provisioning profiles. After spending atleast an hour on regenerating all my provisioning profiles and uploading new builds without any success (same error messages) I ended up wth the following solution:

How it does work

1. Add Entitlements.plist

Add a new file called Entitlements.plist to the root of your Titanium project folder with the following content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>beta-reports-active</key>
  <true/>
  <key>get-task-allow</key>
  <false/>
  <key>aps-environment</key>
  <string>production</string>
  <key>application-identifier</key>
  <string>XXXXXXXXXX.com.example.app</string>
  <key>keychain-access-groups</key>
  <array>
    <string>XXXXXXXXXX.com.example.app</string>
  </array>
</dict>
</plist>

WARNING: When building for AdHoc the Entitlements.plist file should not be present. To automate this I use the following Grunt tasks.

  1. Add grunt-rename to package.json
  2. Add grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-titanium'); to your Gruntfile.js
  3. Add rename tasks:
rename: {
  backup_entitlements: {
    src: 'Entitlements.plist',
    dest: 'Entitlements-backup.plist'
  },
  add_entitlements: {
    src: 'Entitlements-backup.plist',
    dest: 'Entitlements.plist'
  }
}
  1. Update your adhoc task:
grunt.registerTask('adhoc', ['rename:backup_entitlements', 'clean', 'titanium:adhoc', 'rename:add_entitlements']);

Continue as normal

Now you can continue as normal:

  1. Create AppStore build
  2. Upload to iTunes connect
  3. Turn on TestFlight beta testing for your build

You should now be able to turn on TestFlight beta testing in iTunes connect console.

Passionate about Cloud Computing and Ruby on Rails development. About two years ago the idea of Composrapp.com came up.

Comments

  • Almo

    But HOW do you turn on Test Flight Beta Testing? I have my app uploaded, and I can’t find how to turn this on. :(

  • Almo

    OK… so the switch to turn this on doesn’t show up until it’s finished processing your app upload. Very confusing.

  • Dakaz

    Thanks for the article, it is helpful, but where are editing the package.json and Gruntfile.js at? Could you provide at least relative directory locations? Thanks

  • Niek

    SO, for Bèta testing, we need to upload AppStore builds now? Then what is the use of AdHoc?

  • Cola

    Hi all, I want to ask the same Question as Dakaz, did somebody can post the files that we must change?