IOS users are experiencing difficult times: the App Store is losing large apps and blocking successful startups, many companies accuse Apple of monopoly, and Epic Games openly violates the ToS. In this situation, more and more developers and users are starting to use TestFlight - Apple's official platform for testing applications for iOS.
TestFlight has become a hub for apps that don't have a place in the main store. For example, Square's Jordan Singer developed several lil apps , each with its own little task, be it a calculator, to-do list, or weather forecast. Apple did not miss any of these applications, citing their "insufficient functionality for publication in the App Store," although minimalism was their main feature. The Clubhouse app, which became a hit in the Valley, has not even released into the main store yet - the developers want to grow their audience and introduce features gradually, fearing problems from disruptive success after publication in the App Store.
TestFlight works like this: the developer sends the application for review, which is much less thorough than when it is released to the store. Moreover, as a rule, only the first downloaded version is checked, if the application somehow works and at least something is (at least one button), it is skipped. The following versions are usually not checked. The application can be downloaded from the invitation link, up to 100 people can take part in internal testing, and up to 10,000 people can take part in general testing. For most indie developers, this is more than enough, and they are in no hurry to endure the inconvenience of publishing in the App Store.
Airport and Departure
Thomas Waite from BitSuites launched the Departures website, which collects all the TestFlight invites found and where anyone can take part in testing applications of even the largest companies like Microsoft. Since Departures attracts quite a lot of attention, it is also used by small developers to promote their application to a loyal and close-knit audience.
The already mentioned Jordan Singer went even further and developed a convenient and functional Airport application, in which you can explore the largest TestFlight application catalog and download any of them. The Airport itself is installed through the main TF application, and everything else is available for installation directly in it.
By the tenth day since the launch of the Airport, it had:
- 284 applications
- 10,000 users (or testers, as you see it)
- 241 thousand views in total for all applications
Airport provides applications with a list and a selection by categories, is able to suggest cards, search for applications and actually install them, and just yesterday it added developer profiles, in which their applications are collected.
Despite the fact that access to the Airport could only be obtained upon request, the application became very popular on Twitter, quickly gained its maximum 10 thousand users and found itself at a crossroads: Jordan has not yet revealed the further fate of the project. He can try to publish Airport in the App Store and hope that Apple does not perceive it as a market competing with the App Store itself (which is not the case, they have different audiences and products), or he can follow the AltStore route and choose a semi-legal installation with renewable certificates ... It all depends on Apple's position, which they have not yet announced. If Airport moves out of experimentation into a public product, it could soon confuse the cards of Apple, which has always struggled desperately with alternative sources of iOS apps.
Jordan promised to soon release the Airport for public use in one way or another, so the project will not be left without attention :)
Site: https://airport.community/
Place your application: https://airtable.com/shrMuoAmFkRthLqgM
Developer: https: / /twitter.com/jsngr
Apple TestFlight: https://developer.apple.com/testflight/
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