Instructions for Application Testers

This section provides instructions to testers about the procedures to follow to test your iPhone applications on their devices. An application tester is a potential user of your application who wants to test it before it's released through the App Store.

You may send these instructions, along with any special tasks needed to test your application, to customers interested in testing your application.

Sending Your Device ID to a Developer

Before a developer can send you an application for testing, they must register your device with Apple under their application-testing program.

To send your device ID to a developer for test-program registration:

1. Launch iTunes.

2. Connect your device to your computer.

3. Select the device in the Devices list.

4. In the Summary pane, click the Serial Number label. It changes to Identifier.

5. Choose Edit > Copy.

6. Email your device identifier to the developer. Be sure to include your name and device name in the email.

Installing an Application for Testing

After being successfully registered in a developer's testing program, the developer sends you an archive containing two files: the application and a provisioning profile. You need to install both files into iTunes to run the application on your device.

After opening the archive:

1. Drag the provisioning profile (the file with the .mobileprovision extension) to the iTunes Library group.

2. Drag the application (the file with the .app extension) to the iTunes Library group.

   The application appears in the Applications list.

3. Sync your device.

   If the version of iPhone OS on your device is earlier than the test application can run on, you need to update your device with the current release of iPhone OS.

Sending Crash Reports to a Developer

When the application you're testing crashes, iPhone OS creates a record of that event. The next time you connect your device to iTunes, iTunes downloads those records (known as crash logs) to your computer. To help get the problem fixed, you should send crash logs of the application you're testing to its developer.

Sending Crash Reports from Macs

To send crash logs to developers:

1. In the Finder, open a new window.

2. Choose Go > Go to Folder.

3. Enter ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice.

4. Open the folder named after your device's name.

5. Select the crash logs named after the application you're testing.

6. Choose Finder > Services > Mail > Send File.

7. In the New Message window, enter the developer's email address in the To field and <application_name> crash logs from <your_name> (for example, MyTestApp crash logs from Anna Haro) in the Subject field.

8. Choose Message > Send.

9. In the Finder, you may delete the crash logs you sent to avoid sending duplicate reports later.

Sending Crash Reports from Windows

To send crash logs to developers, enter the crash log directory (Listing 9-1 and Listing 9-2) in the Windows search field, replacing <user_name> with your Windows user name.

Listing 9-1  Crash log storage on Windows Vista

C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\Apple computer\Logs\CrashReporter/MobileDevice

Listing 9-2  Crash log storage on Windows XP

C:\Documents and Settings\<user_name>\Application Data\Apple computer\Logs\CrashReporter

Open the folder named after your device's name and send the crash logs for the application you're testing in an email message using the subject-text format <application_name> crash logs from <your_name> (for example, MyTestApp crash logs from Anna Haro) to the application's developer.

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