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Apple shutting down legacy TestFlight next month following iTunes Connect integration

Apple today began informing legacy TestFlight users that the services on TestFlightApp.com will no longer be available after February 26th, 2015. Apple bought the popular software testing distribution service through its acquisition of Burstly almost a year ago, and announced plans at WWDC 2014 to roll out its own version of the service in the future. Since then, Apple has integrated TestFlight beta testing for app developers with iTunes Connect.

TestFlight users were informed of the legacy service shutdown coming next month through both an email blast and a support document published today.

“Apps from TestFlightApp.com will not be transferred to the new service. App Developers will need to set up their apps for the new TestFlight Beta Testing in iTunes Connect.”

As mentioned above, TestFlight now directs users to transition their apps and testers to Apple’s TestFlight Beta Testing platform through the iTunes Connect developer portal.

While Apple purchased TestFlight to offer its own in-house robust beta distribution service for developers with up to 1,000 external beta testers, alternative services remain available for developers wanting to avoid the review process Apple requires.

Hockeyapp, which supports various platforms including iOS, Mac, Android, and Windows Phone, was recently acquired by Microsoft although no changes have been made to the service yet and continued support has been promised. Twitter owns through acquisition Crashlytics, another popular alternative beta distribution service.

TestFlight previously shut down support for its SDK and Android beta distribution last year around the time of the Apple purchase.

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Comments

  1. vtcajones - 9 years ago

    Ugh. I’ve still been using TestFlightApp.com because the iTunes connect version still has so many issues. This is definitely not great news.

    • ifunography - 9 years ago

      Yeah, I’m still a fan of TestFlightApp.com over iTunes Connect too. Oh well.

    • Samuel A. Maffei - 9 years ago

      And, it will only distribute apps on iOS 8, no iOS 7. 28% of the market still runs iOS 7. That’s a little too large to ignore for testing. Part of Apple’s BS to drive iOS 8 adoption.

  2. John Martin - 9 years ago

    Great. So now its pretty much completely impractical to bother supporting iOS 7 any more. Kiss goodbye to any new apps or updates if you have an iPad much more than a year old.

    • jimhillhouse - 9 years ago

      I run iOS 7 on an iPad 2 test device and it works fine.

      • John Martin - 9 years ago

        Try installing Apple’s TestFlight App on your iOS 7 device ;) : https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/id899247664?mt=8
        Apple have just made it a lot harder for developers to distribute builds to testers running anything other than iOS 8.

      • jimhillhouse - 9 years ago

        I know. Darned unending march of progress forward. And to thibk some silly tech journos thibk Apple might loose its ability to sacrific past products for the new.

  3. If you need a TestFlight or HockeyApp alternative you should check out http://app.io and their mobile app streaming service. Same benefits but even easier to setup and use because they stream instead of requiring downloads.

  4. When android support was dropped, we looked for alternatives. Found installrapp.com. Android and iOS support. Pricing is reasonable. Free for small test groups. Developers are responsive to any support queries.

  5. Personally I prefer http://installrapp.com/ a great service without the headaches.

  6. Jaison Green - 9 years ago

    This really sucks because Apple doesn’t account for internal-only enterprise iOS applications. Apple allows you to invite 500 external “testers” to test your application and it requires an app review. I don’t want Apple reviewing an internal only application.

  7. Jorge Tomé (@JorgeTome) - 9 years ago

    Hello, http://testfairy.com/ is another alternative you should take in account. Great analytics about your apps and also complete video recording of the testing sessions. It has been a great finding for us.

  8. mskoua - 9 years ago

    And what about that app-analytics feature that was announced at wwdc? Still missing that!

  9. Richard Rauser - 9 years ago

    TestFlight for iTunes Connect doesn’t appear to allow programmatic uploads of builds like the original TestFlight does. This is a deal-breaker for us and so we are moving to Hockey App. It’s slightly bizarre that Apple is forcing us away from their own product and into the hands of Microsoft…

  10. alexiaint - 9 years ago

    Shutting down Android support… iOS 8 only…. And finally: no chances for our enterprise apps!! Oh common. Our team was patient, but now the patience has run out!!!

    Hey, TestFlight!! Tomorrow we are switching to the #1 cometitor of yours – http://ubertesters.com/ !!! You pushed things too far.

    • andrewwhite2012 - 9 years ago

      How was it? Have you seen the following article: http://blog.ubertesters.com/beta-testing-enterprise-apps-without-appstore-review/ ? This is from Ubertesters blog, so I’m wondering if you had a chance to try it. Really interesting for enterprise app developers.

      • alexiaint - 9 years ago

        We are using Ubertesters for only two weeks, but I can say it’s a perfect solution for us so far. It’s a bit more complicated in terms of their SDK integration, although to integrate it is not mandatory. They offer unique features such as screenshot editing within the app which my testers really love (it saves lots of their time, so I love it as well lol).

        Thanks for the article. I haven’t seen it.

  11. alexifrim - 9 years ago

    One of the reasons I was using the old testflight was due to the option to send and view the testers logs (TFLog).

Author

Avatar for Zac Hall Zac Hall

Zac covers Apple news, hosts the 9to5Mac Happy Hour podcast, and created SpaceExplored.com.