TestFlight is an online service for over-the-air installation and testing of

mobile application A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

s, currently owned by

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and only offered to developers within the

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

Developer Program. Developers sign up with the service to distribute applications to internal or external beta testers, who can subsequently send feedback about the application to developers. The TestFlight SDK additionally allows developers to receive remote logs, crash reports and tester feedback. TestFlight initially supported testing of Android and

applications, but since March 2014, Apple has retracted support for Android. As of 2015, applications must be published for TestFlight using

Xcode Xcode is a suite of developer tools for building apps on Apple devices. It includes an integrated development environment (IDE) of the same name for macOS, used to develop software for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS. It w ...

, and testers must be invited using iTunes Connect. Developers can also provide a TestFlight invitation code to testers via email or a web page. When the link is opened on an iPhone with the TestFlight app installed, a tester can directly install the beta app on their device. Developers can build beta tester groups directly using the App Store and Xcode integration and publicize these invitation links. After invitation, up to 100 internal testers (with up to 30 devices each) and 10,000 external beta testers can download and test the application build. Up to 100 apps can be tested at a time, internally or externally. Testers may be grouped and separate builds created for each group. The TestFlight application for iOS notifies testers when new builds are available, features to focus on, and enables sending of feedback.

History

TestFlight was founded by Benjamin Satterfield and Trystan Kosmynka on December 23, 2010, and was designed as a single platform to test mobile applications on Android and

devices. It was acquired by Burstly in March 2012, and thereby gained the resources necessary to launch ''TestFlight Live''. In 2011, Burstly raised $7.3 million from Upfront Ventures, Rincon Venture Partners, Softbank Capital and others.

acquired Burstly in February 2014, and terminated support for Android as of March 2014. Apple also shut down ''FlightPath'' (a mobile analytics solution and a replacement to ''TestFlight Live'') and ''SkyRocket'' (a mobile application monetization platform) the same month. On 17 December 2023, several terabytes of pre-release iOS apps were discovered on the

Wayback Machine The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by Internet Archive, an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California. Launched for public access in 2001, the service allows users to go "back in ...

, having been mirrored from 2012 to 2015 when TestFlight's servers had mistakenly made them publicly accessible. It was dubbed the "Teraleak" or "Terascrape", similar to Nintendo's Gigaleak from 3 years prior. This content was later removed from the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

on January 4, 2024.

History

References

See also