Apple Approval for Beta-Testing

WOW - That didn't take long! Submitted build to iTunes Connect around 3pm today and recieved approval for beta-testing at 9.45pm the same day. A lot quicker than the 2 days or so I had read was standard. Must have been a slow day in the submissions office...!

The TestFlight beta-testing scheme run via iTunes Connect has two tiers of testing. The first is designed for internal testers - people on your team who are registered to your iTunes Connect account. You can have up to 25 of these. The second tier is for external testers - people anywhere in the world with an iOS device and an email address. You can have up to 2000 of these. To allow a build to be externally tested it needs to gain Apple approval - a kind of mini-review process.

I can thoroughly recommend Ray Wenderlich's excellent tutorial on how to prepare for TestFlight testing - clear and simple.

The mini-review requires some information from you as well as the build itself. Most of it is straight forward, but providing a privacy policy was something I needed to research. I can recommend Iubenda.com - an online automated service fully up-to-speed with the latest mobile pluggin's you may be using to collact/share personal data. It took less than 10 minutes to create a privacy policy tailored to the needs of Smart Numbers. (There is a link to it at the foot of this page).

So now I am approved for beta-testing it's time to let all my contacts know, and find out how stable (or not) the game really is :-)