Hey there,
could you guys lend me a helping hand on a good way to distribute an Framework7 Cordova Android and IOS app for testing?
I do build an app for Android and IOS locally and would like to share the app with more people for testing.
I tried Microsoft Azure, which seems to work with Visual Studio only which I do not like that much.
What would you recommend to test and share Framework7 Cordova Android and IOS apps?
Thank you,
Oliver
One quick way is to build a ‘web’ version of the app, which you can put on any url for testing. It won’t have some functionality if a plugin does not support it on browser platform, but most of the app should be usable for testing.
Alternatively, just build an android apk, put that on a url, send the link to friends/testers and they can help test.
Hi, thank you for your reply.
I do get what you are saying.
Let me be more precisely what my actual problem is, as I was not clear enough about it with my first question.
Especially on IOS it is a little more complicated. The app needs to be signed and testers must be invited first and their devices needs to be registered for testing (as far as I know, never have set it up so far yet).
Especially for unexperienced users/testers this is a pitfall on IOS.
I read a little in the meantime about app distribution for teams and stubled upon
These all claim to have an easy APK (Android) / IPA (IOS) distribution over the web for testers.
Can you name other solutions than these two? Do any of these work with Framework7 Cordova?
Sorry for all these rookie questions, but these are my very first steps in trying to set up a testing environment for shared applications.
Thanks,
Oliver
Good thing first:
“Do any of these work with Framework7 Cordova?”
Yes, all these solutions should work because cordova apps are after all android/ios apps, and though i have not tried either azure or firebase, they should work for f7+cordova apps too.
Now the bad news:
Apple does make it difficult to test ios apps outside of appstore, and the simplest and fastest way is to use the apple’s own testflight app. Unfortunately, it requires first registering an appstore account (paid).
Android apps can be tested in many ways, so that should give you plenty of options.
Someone else here might be able to help you further, I hope you get your answers.
Hi Irfan,
I read a little more about IOS and testing and setting up Apple Testflight and registering the desired devices for testing by UUID seems to be the way as you suggested.
Thank you for taking time to answer my questions.
Oliver
@Ollibolli Apple introduced public external testflight a few months ago. You can enable this in appstore connect on the TestFlight tab. After you have enabled it, you can generate public links with usage limit. This public link can be send through mail or whatsapp for example to invite somebody to test your app. Apps distributed this way will expire in 90 days, but usually that’s enough to test test your app.
For Android, you can distribute an APK. For iOS, either use testflight, or distribute an IPA and have your users sign it with AltStore.
