One of the capabilities of Icenium that makes testing your mobile apps simpler is the ability to deploy applications in development to iOS devices without the need to provision them thought Apple’s developer portal, which requires a $99/year developer account. While getting a device provisioned is not too difficult, coding and testing your app on a device without having to go through that process is certainly easier. As an added benefit, you can share your app with your beta testers easily as well. Of course, eventually you will want to provision a device or two for complete testing (and you need an Apple developer account to publish your app), but that can come later – save the $99 for now.
Icenium Ion is the dev-test utility app that makes testing your app on an unprovisioned iOS device possible. Ion is a container app available through the AppStore that you can load any Icenium project into. To use Ion to test your app, simply follow the steps below.
Installing Icenium Projects on iOS Devices with Mist
- Install a QR Code reader (I use QRReader). The QR reader will be used to scan a QR code which will trigger the app installation process.
- Install Icenium Ion
- You have the option of doing this via the App Store—just search for “Icenium Ion” or use the link above.
- You can also wait and use your QR Code reader to download Ion in Step 4a.
- Select On Device from the Run dropdown
- You will be prompted to choose the platform you want to target. Select iOS from the drop down
- At this point if you have not installed Ion you can click on the button that says “No provisions or want to avoid the hassle?”
- Scan the QR code with your QR reader and it will open the AppStore app to the Icenium Ion page.
- Click Install to download and install Ion.
- Once Ion is installed click the “I have already installed Icenium Ion on my phone” button to get the QR Code that will install your project into Ion on your device.
- Ion will be launched and the package will be copied on your device.
- Click the OK button in the Ion splash screen to dismiss it and see your project running in Ion.
- Notice on the splash screen there are instructions on how you can update your app on the device by pressing three fingers on the screen. This will send an update request to the Icenium Cloud Services and your project contents will be updated on the device.
Installing Icenium Projects on iOS Devices with Graphite
You can also use Icenium Graphite to deploy your project to an unprovisioned iOS device.
- Install Icenium Ion from the App Store—just search for “Icenium Ion” or use the link above.
- Connect your iOS device to your PC via a USB cable.
- Open your project and click On Device in the Run menu
- After the build is complete and the app is downloaded (check the status in the lower-left corner), open Ion to see your app running (you may need to dismiss the splash screen).
Once you go through this you will see this is a quick easy way to get your application on to your iOS devices. You can even copy the image of the QR Codes and email them to testers of your application for wider testing.
Happy coding!