Best practice for developing and testing AIR iOS multitouch apps

[tomaugerdotcom]

I'm considering switching our iPhone development practice from XCode/Objective C to AIR to leverage a larger pool of in house talent. The biggest concern I have right now is testing multitouch functionality - the prospect of having to do incremental builds, provisioning and deployment just to test and tweak the multitouch aspects of our projects is daunting, if not downright depressing.

What tools / services or techniques have been developed to facilitate what is undoubtedly one of the most common issues with developing for multitouch iOS using a desktop-based AIR development environment?

[Guest]

If you plan on using Flash pro CS5.5, they have a program called "device central" that lets you use emulators to test (even testing multitouch).  I am still on CS5 so I can only say from what I have heard, but I say that it is the biggest pain in the butt to have to compile your ipa and port that into itunes, then sync to your ipod every single time you want to test a change (this is what I currently have to do in CS5).

With device central it sounds like it will cut down on the develop time considerably if you are like me and like to test, test, test

[tomaugerdotcom]

Thanks for the quick reply. So the simulator is only available in 5.5. I suppose this is not a free upgrade to us poor idiots that supported Adobe by upgrading as quickly as possible to CS5 when it came out? Does anyone know of a standalone simulator that is available to the rest of the developer community in the open source tradition of the Flex / AIR SDK?

[Guest]

As far as I know (and i could be wrong), there are no other ios simulators built for direct interaction with flash / flex / flash builder.  I know the device center on cs5 has a lot of simulators, but no iphone though.

And the CS5.5 upgrade is not free, but it is available at a very reduced price if you have the CS5 version.  I don't regret getting CS5 at all.  The only real downside to air development is that Adobe is making really nice, optimizing changes on a fairly regular basis so you never quite know what functionality will be available in the next air or full software release.

IMO, upgrade to cs5.5

[tomaugerdotcom]

Thanks for that. Do we know whether the iPhone has the same USB live update feature that Adobe announced for Android?

[Guest]

Are you talking about in terms of newer air versions?  I believe that is something that apple releases via itunes when it checks if your ios device is up to date.  So adobe would release a new version of air, and let apple know.  Then apple, when they are good and ready, will release it as an ios update via itunes.

Someone please correct me if i am wrong.

[Joe ... Ward]

This isn't true on iOS. Every AIR app on iOS contains its own complete copy of the runtime. Using a separate runtime isn't allowed on iOS.

[Guest]

Oh i see what are you saying now.

Android has a seperate run time, but an ios app created in flash has all of the air components packaged with it?  That would explain why the ipa sizes are always a certain size to begin with.

[tomaugerdotcom]

tgKalsch wrote:

Are you talking about in terms of newer air versions?

Hey TG, no I was referring to the fact that you can have your Android device plugged into your development computer via USB and directly upload and test your apps. Very cool.

T

[Guest]

Yea that is definitely a perk for developing Air for android.  And like i said for IOS, it can be a real pain in the butt to make a lot of tweaks / changes since you have to recompile an ipa, put it into itunes, add it to your iois device, and sync every time you want to view it

[tomaugerdotcom]

And like i said for IOS, it can be a real pain in the butt to make a lot of tweaks / changes since you have to recompile an ipa, put it into itunes, add it to your iois device, and sync every time you want to view it

...which is why we all love Apple, isn't it?

[joeboy_uk]

you don't have to use itunes.

Open xcode, have your ipad/iphone plugged in and sync using the organizer, it just transfers it over. It's not as good as an emulator but it is faster than using itunes

[tomaugerdotcom]

Open xcode, have your ipad/iphone plugged in and sync using the organizer, it just transfers it over. It's not as good as an emulator but it is faster than using itunes

Bear in mind that the OP was about using Adobe Flash, not XCode.

[Joe ... Ward · Accepted solution]

@tomaugerdotcom

Something like this might help: https://testflightapp.com/

Concevably, you could roll your own internal service if that particular one doesn't suit you. (I don't have any knowledge about how they are doing it, but it shouldn't be hard to figure out since Apple's constraining rules would only allow a few possibilities.)

USB app install and debugging isn't supported on iOS. You have to use wireless.

Another option specifically for multi-touch dev/testing, is to use an Android device.

[tomaugerdotcom]

Hey Joe - thanks for the answer. It's a good idea - we might just eschew iOS in favour of Android for development and testing and then port or cross-compile and do final tests on iPhone after that. More bang for the buck.

What do you mean by "wireless" deployment?

[Guest]

On Android you can debug over a wifi connection.  I.E. you can get trace statements when running on an actual device to output on your computer.  With android you are also able to publish directly to the phone, whereas with IOS you have to compile an ipa then port it over via itunes with no wireless debug option

[Colin Holgate]

Debugging does work via wireless on iOS. Also, you don't have to use iTunes to put your app onto the device. Either use Xcode's Organizer window (after unzipping the IPA to get at the actual app file), or use the iPhone Configuration Utility:

http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/enterprise/

Then you just drag the app to your device, and there's no need for synching.

[Guest]

Well Xcode is mac only, unless they changed that recently.  So pc users can't use that method.  I haven't seen that iphone configuration utitlity before.  Is that compatible with windows?

[tomaugerdotcom]

or use the iPhone Configuration Utility:

http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/enterprise/

Then you just drag the app to your device, and there's no need for synching.

That sounds sweet! Mac only, I presume. And do you need to have the enterprise level developer account, or does this work with any Apple Developer account?

[Guest]

It looks like there is a windows version, and i am installing it now to test

[Guest]

After installing it and testing it:

The Iphone configuration utility does work on windows and it basically mimics itunes for apps.  You get a list of your installed apps, and you can drag provisioning profiles and new ipa's right into the window.  It is faster than using itunes only in the sense that you don't have to sync your IOS device to install them which is actually kind of nifty

[Colin Holgate]

A click on the link would have answered both questions!

[tomaugerdotcom]

Colin Holgate wrote:

A click on the link would have answered both questions!

Guilty as charged. Thanks for the info though.