TestFlight Fever

I recently heard about TestFlight and I became extremely excited. Now having never done any ad-hoc distribution for iPhone apps in the past, I thought that I had hit the jackpot! I quickly signed up, sent invites to my team members and then rushed to upload a build ... so that everyone could start testing instantly :)

But oh boy was I in for a surprise. TestFlight became a victim of my false expectations:

1. False expectation # 1: I don't have to maintain the profiles for the folks that I invite for testing my app via TestFlight.
   
   • WRONG! The 1st thing that TestFlight warned me about was the fact that it could not accept my build because I was probably using a distribution profile. Now since a dist-profile doesn't have a record for any of the devices from my team members, it wouldn't work. So TestFlight warned me about this and told me to go perform my build with an Ad-Hoc profile.
2. False expectation # 2: TestFlight will clearly document and guide a novice like me how to setup an Ad-Hoc configuration in XCode4.
   
   • UPDATE! They now prompt you with an informative link that will give you all the help you need.
   • WRONG! While they may make a welcome improvement in the future, I could not find any help on the immediate TestFlight site ... but just like any good engineer of the Google-era I was able to find an excellent article on the web for it that got me past this hurdle.
3. False expectation # 3: Just this one time, I can get away by faithfully following the instructions of other folks and not having to bang my head bloody w/ trial & error.
   
   • WRONG! The XCode4 + Ad-Hoc distribution configuration article got me off to a flying start but I quickly realized that I had no idea how to create an Ad-Hoc profile.
   • After mucking about I figured out the steps are:
     
     • Goto iOS Provisioning Portal
     • Select Provisioning from the left pane
     • Select the Distribution tab from the right
     • Click the New Profile button
     • Make sure to mark the Ad Hoc bullet option as the distribution method.
     • Select all the Devices that can use this profile.
     • Download and install this new profile and prepare your build with it.
4. False expectation # 4: Any TestFlight teammates who accept their invites and whose devices weren't explicitly added as a part of the Ad-Hoc profile at the time of its creation ... will be injected into the Ad-Hoc profile auto-magically.
   
   • SUPER WRONG! You have to go edit you Ad-Hoc profile and add the devices yourself. TestFlight does NOT commandeer your Apple provisioning account to do this for you.
   • What TestFlight DOES offer us (the users) is the ability to easily collect the UDIDs of our fellow teammates. Think about it, having your teammates get an email that they open via their iPhone/iPad ... and which results in their UDID being shuttled over to a central location in TestFlight for easy collection is already a huge boon! Perhas the only boon one should be asking for :)
   • Gone are the days of running around looking for a computer so that you can connect to iTunes and painstakingly jot down an impossibly long identifier.
   • Anyways, make sure to add the UDIDs for all of your team members as they accept the invites and sign up. Collect them from TestFlight and go update your Ad-Hoc profile as & when needed ... by adding and then selecting the decives for inclusion by marking the checkboxes under the Devices section of the Ad-Hoc profile.

In conclusion TestFlight rocks out loud and hopefully I've covered any novice errors that would have otherwise prevented others from thinking likewise.