Note: This post was written a while back but sat in draft. I’ve published this now, but I’m not sure it’s relevant to the latest versions etc. so please bear this in mind.

Pre-requisites

You’ll need an Apple developer account if you intend to eventually deploy your application to the Apple store, using this site https://developer.apple.com/account, however you can use the free provisioning using Free provisioning for Xamarin.iOS apps.

As I already have an Apple Developer account this post will concentrate on provisioning with a Developer account id.

TestFlight

TestFlight is the Apple beta testing tool which allows users to access your application in test (i.e. not live on the app store). Your users will need to install TestFlight, see Beta Testing Made Simple with TestFlight and you’ll need to set up an application for testing via https://appstoreconnect.apple.com/

Deploying your application to TestFlight

Once you’ve built and signed your application so it’s ready for distribution then, one of the simplest ways to deploy your application to TestFlight is install Transporter on your Mac and simply Add the application to Transport which in turn will upload to your TestFlight account.

Your application will go through a build process and when completed you’ll receive an email letting you know. You’ll be waiting for the status of your build (within appstoreconnect) to change state to Approved (this may take a couple of days although I’ve also seen posts from people stating this can take longer). Once approved we select our External Groups (testers) and you should see a Enable Public Link – click on this (enable it). Now you’ll have a link to send to your users, although appstoreconnect should automatically send this to any testers you add.

Note: Your TestFlight build is available for a total of 90 days, ofcourse this excludes the build and review process. If you do not update the application within that time the app will expire.

Once your build has passed review, it’ll go into a Testing status, any testers you’ve added already will get a code to redeem in TestFlight from their device, you can also enable a link that you can send to people to load the application for testing. This obviously allows you to have a core group of testers as well as a public access to testing.

When your application is deployed to your testers via TestFlight, the icon that you launch the application from will have a small orange dot (it looks red on a dark background) to indicate this is a beta application.

When you’re ready to update your testers with a new application, if you only change the Build version, i.e. if your app version is 0.1.0 and build was 1.0, just changing this to 2.0 will mean your application need not go through review again. Instead it’ll go into a Submit Ready state, waiting for you to assign testers and then it’ll switch to Testing.

References

Automatic Provisioning for Xamarin.iOS
TestFlight – How to Upload and Distribute Your App | App Store 2021