What is TestFlight? How a team and its clients test an iPhone app before release

TestFlight is part of App Store Connect, Apple’s system for publishing apps. You upload a build of your app once; from there it can go to testers through TestFlight, or to the App Store for release. Apple describes it as making it “easy for testers to give feedback on your apps, games, and App Clips across Apple platforms before you publish.”

For a team, TestFlight answers a practical question: how does everyone who is not building the app get it on their phone? The product manager, the designer, the client and the first beta users all install it from the same place.

Yes. TestFlight distribution needs an Apple Developer Program membership, which costs 99 USD per year. Testers do not need one: they need an Apple ID and the TestFlight app. Setting up an Apple Developer account walks through the enrolment.

1. Create the app in App Store Connect. The app record holds the name and the bundle ID that every build uses.

2. Upload a build. A build is archived in Xcode (or by a tool that runs Xcode for you) and uploaded to App Store Connect.

3. Create tester groups. Apple: “Create groups for testers, then assign specific builds to them.” For example: Team, Client, Beta users.

4. Invite testers. Internal testers are added from your App Store Connect team; external testers by email or with a public link.

5. Collect feedback. Testers send feedback from the TestFlight app or by taking a screenshot inside your app; you read it in App Store Connect.

Internal testers are people on your App Store Connect team. Apple: “Designate up to 100 members of your development team who hold the Account Holder, Admin, App Manager, Developer, or Marketing role as beta testers.” On a product team that is usually the product manager, the designer and the engineers. Builds reach them without an App Review step.

External testers are everyone else: clients, their staff, beta users. Apple: “You can also invite up to 10,000 external testers to join your beta program.” They do not need access to App Store Connect.

For agency work, the client’s team is usually external, unless the app is published from the client’s own Apple account and they add themselves there.

By email. Add the tester’s email address to a group; they receive an invitation and open it in the TestFlight app.

With a public link. Apple: “Include a public link in your marketing communications — such as email, social media, and more — to invite people to test your beta build.” You can set criteria for the link to limit how many people join.

Only for external testers, and only fully for the first build. Apple: “When you add the first build of your app to a group, the build gets sent to App Review”, and “A review is required only for the first build. Subsequent builds may not require a full review.” Internal testers can install builds without that review.

Plan for the review before the first client demo: send the first build to an external group early, so later builds reach the client without waiting.

90 days. Apple: “You can test a build for up to 90 days.” After that the build stops working on testers’ phones. Teams that build often never reach the limit, because a newer build replaces the old one first.

Testers on recent versions of TestFlight “can submit feedback either through the TestFlight app or by taking a screenshot directly within your beta app.” The screenshot and the comment arrive in the TestFlight Feedback section of App Store Connect, with the device and the build attached. For a team, that means design comments from a client arrive with the exact screen they refer to.

No. TestFlight is Apple-only. Google Play has internal testing, internal app sharing, closed testing and open testing instead. TestFlight for Android compares them.