How can I test a production iOS App Store build?

Question

I'm new to iPhone development and i'm not sure how to test the actually binary that will be sent to Apple. Today I released a build that works great on my local device but the released App Store version did not work and hung on launch.

I'm trying to figure out how I can test my production builds so this doesn't happen again.

I tried creating an ad-hoc binary and saved the ipa to my desktop, then imported into iTunes. The app synced and downloaded but remained dark and said 'waiting..'.

I signed up for Test Flight and it said my IPA was created for production and the sdk could not be found.

Do I need to research ad-hoc builds and profiles? This seems to be getting confusing really quickly and i'm not sure where to start looking/learning.

Answer 1

When you create an archive to submit to the AppStore, it is saved under the organizer (Press Command + Shift + 2 to open Organizer). You can save the same archive for Ad-hoc distribution as a .IPA file, and then install it using iTunes or TestFlight.

In the Organizer, just select the right archive, click 'Distribute', and select 'Ad-hoc distribution' and sign the IPA with your Ad-Hoc distribution profile (if you haven't created an ad-hoc distribution profile, create one at developer.apple.com, download it and double-click on it to import it to your Mac OS Keychain) to generate the .IPA file.

As long as you re-sign your AppStore archive with an ad-hoc distribution profile, it should install and execute on your test devices.