100 Devices ⇥

Developers on iOS have long petitioned Apple for a less-restrictive annual provisioning limit. A hundred devices simply isn’t enough for ad hoc distribution. Craig Hockenberry is one of the most vocal critics, though he’s by no means the only one. He summarises the problem neatly in UDID Not, a post from nearly two years ago:

As developers, we want to maintain a pool of testers, not devices that they test on. Devices are ephemeral: they change as new hardware is introduced and replaced. The thing that remains constant are the people who test our products.

In this linked Wall Street Journal article, Jessica Vascellaro writes about the ways developers are working around the limitation:

Instagram registered for another $99-a-year developer account, nabbing 100 additional testing slots. A person familiar with the matter says Apple doesn’t encourage such a move but that it doesn’t violate the company’s terms of service.

Developers are having to resort to buying multiple accounts just to allow for ad hoc beta testing. It’s a bit ridiculous. It also requires users to submit their UDIDs to the developer, a key that most users don’t even know exists.

But this very limitation has created TestFlight, a smart service which allows developers to distribute their app for beta testing much more easily than Apple’s own tools do. M.G. Siegler notes that Apple should buy TestFlight or create their own version of it.

It makes the development experience better, it makes beta testing easier and it saves frustration when it comes time to launch in the App Store.