TestFlight App via iTunes Connect

TestFlight on the App Store

TechCrunch tells us today that Apple has enabled (via iTunes Connect) TestFlight registered developers to now invite up to 1,000 beta testers to try out their iOS apps. TestFlight, writes TechCrunch, allowed "developers to build teams to try out software before it launches, and report back bugs in order to prepare apps for a public launch." A dedicated TestFlight app, says TechCrunch, provides the central resource for testers, now facilitating feedback and getting new builds on release by developers.

The iTunes App Store page indicated above confirms that the TestFlight App "allows you to install and beta test apps on your iOS device. After a developer invites you to beta test their app, you can install new versions as they become available. TestFlight also allows you to provide valuable feedback to developers on the features you are testing ...". Apple tells us more about how to get started with TestFlight on this page.

The TestFlight App website claims that "most of the world's developers rely on the TestFlight platform for beta testing, crash reporting and analytics."

As TechCrunch says, "The new TestFlight offers a lot of convenience features that should make it easier for developers to gather feedback from actual users, instead of just tech-savvy early adopters..." This is indeed great news, because we can be now hope to be sure the Apps we see in the App Store in future would have been tried and tested by people like me, who do not always know what we're "supposed" to do when using an App.

This reminds me in a smaller way about Microsoft's Windows 10 Tech Preview OS which I wrote about earlier on LinkedIn and here as well. MS, too, have gone to the general public to rigorously test the proposed new OS, in order to, hopefully, avoid many of the glitches which may not always be evident to the more experienced techies who create the OS in the first place.

I wonder who is learning from whom...