Chapter 9. Wear It, Test It, Tweak It, Ship It

Although there is more than a modicum of truth in the saying Software development is a process, not a product, there comes a point when the current version of an app has become a release candidate and a number of post-development housekeeping tasks remain to be completed before said app is ready for shipping.

This chapter deals broadly with two areas—testing the app once it is more or less ready for release and submission of the app to the Apple App Store.

These two areas have something in common, apart from being essential parts of the app development process—both tend to be underestimated in terms of the time they take. You are unlikely at this stage to be working to a strict release schedule, it is true, but often there is a temptation to rush things in this final stretch, now that the code is written and you are apparently (pardon the pun) ready to go, and the tasks that get overlooked or hastily completed will come back to bite the impatient...

Installation on a physical device

You may already have an Apple Watch and you may have been using it to build and run the apps presented in this book, all with no problems at all. And if you have, good on you, you were in luck.

Quite possibly you have a watch, and you have made a detour here because things aren't running quite as smoothly as we would wish. If that's the case, we will soon have you up and running.

What if you don't have an Apple Watch?

It is also completely plausible that you have read this far, using only the Xcode's Watch Simulator app and Xcode itself to test your code.

By now you'll have had considerable opportunity to decide whether or not you're going to get serious about developing for the Apple Watch. This is handy, because you really do need to commit to the purchase of a physical device to go any further in the process of turning an idea in your head into an app on somebody's wrist.

Although you can test at least 90% of your app's code on the Simulator, there are many...

Testing in the field

Once you have your app running on your device, you begin to gain an insight into exactly how your app will feel and behave for your users, an insight much deeper than that which is possible using the Watch Simulator app on a desktop computer or laptop.

Wear it all day

Spend a significant amount of time getting familiar with both your own app(s) and those of other developers, big and small. You need to develop an intuitive feel for users' expectations while using the Apple Watch (although it is entirely up to you whether you choose to fulfil those expectations or delight the user with something new). You may well find that firmly held opinions about what should happen and how can change significantly after a period of hours, or weeks, wearing the watch and using it to engage with your app.

Are your app's implementations of common use cases different from other apps? If they are different, are they better? Are they really better?

Note

Don't get too hung up on following the...

App Store submission process overview

The complete submission process for an iPhone App is beyond the scope of this book. There are many good resource on the internet that will guide you through this if you have never done it before, and this chapter will assume that you have all the information and resources needed for the iPhone app itself in order to focus on those additional preparations that are necessitated by the addition of an Apple Watch App to the main companion app.

We will then present a very succinct summary of the processes involved in preparing your app for upload to the App Store, once again concentrating on the WatchKit app's requirements beyond those of a purely iPhone orientated iOS app.

Here again, a certain degree of patience is going to be of great benefit. The first time you go through this stuff, it can seem like a long, drawn out, and complicated series of steps. Moreover, it is a process that evolves through time; I think it is fair to say that most developers find...

Preparing for submission

Submission of an app to the App Store requires some preparation in three areas:

• The Member Center of Apple's Developer website

• Xcode's project settings

• iTunes Connect, Apple's portal for app administration

As stated already, this section is not intended to be a catch-all guide to App Store submission, but rather aims to provide the context in which additional watch-related steps must be taken.

We are assuming here that you have registered as a developer, that your Development Program membership is valid and up to date, and that you have currently valid development and distribution certificates. Please refer to Apple's documentation for further information.

Apple Developer Member Center

The first thing we need to do is create a distribution provisioning profile for our app with the following steps:

1. Log into the Member Center at https://developer.apple.com/membercenter/index.action and click on the Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles link.

2. Select Identifiers from the iOS...

Summary

That was quite a journey. If it's any consolation, the process has become shorter, simpler, and less error prone as Xcode has developed as an Integrated Development Environment, and iTunes Connect and the Member Center have been tweaked and made more intuitive.

But that was the final step to getting your app released and the next chapter will deal with some of the things you'll need to consider post-release, as well as looking at the many ways there are to go from the point you have now reached.

You have now successfully planned, developed, and tested an Apple Watch app and submitted it to Apple's App Store.

Congratulations again for making it this far!

The next chapter will equip you with the tools and resources you are likely to need moving forward from this point, whether you will work alone or as part of a team; it will look at a number of ways to improve the efficiency of your workflow and offers a few suggestions for adding that extra bit of magic to your app.