Time Travel: 2014

Some teams use people from other departments in the company to conduct testing.

Usually this is a product manager, company executive, big boss or other person.

As long as it's not a company executive test, it's easy to say.

It’s outrageous that you still like to change your requirements when you don’t understand anything.

The product manager should at least understand something. The big boss is basically a technical boss and it is impossible to blindly change the requirements.

As for other personnel, other personnel generally have no say and can basically be ignored.

But no matter who completes the test, the testing behavior of this process also needs to be quantified.

Testing without quantification is meaningless. Only quantification can truly reflect the test results and ensure software quality.

After completing the above two testing tasks, you can now find some small-scale users and conduct target user testing at a low cost.

At this time, we need to make corresponding test preparations. One is the test result recovery channel. Common channels include questionnaires, software problem feedback channels, user communication groups, etc.

This last step is also often called grayscale testing.

However, the above processes are just some testing processes involving larger applications.

For example, Lin Hui's current software does not require logic testing or download testing at all.

Just do the grayscale test directly.

When it comes to programming logic and other issues, Lin Hui can't do it well.

Don’t engage in IT, just provide for your retirement.

When it comes to the internal testing of workflow software, it is quite different from the internal testing of games.

Being an internal beta tester of Apple software workflow is particularly troublesome.

The trouble is mainly with software distribution.

Apple mobile apps cannot be distributed "at will" like Android apps.

Lin Hui once suspected that Apple's founder had a strong desire for manipulation.

In short, there are endless rules for everything involving Apple.

Apart from anything else, even the testing of Apple mobile phones is restricted for you.

Specifically, how to test Apple mobile software?

The most important issue during testing is the distribution of the software to be tested.

In other words, you have to distribute the software that needs to be tested to the testers' devices.

From the previous life, due to different distribution mechanisms, there are generally three types of software testing involved.

They are enterprise signature distribution, TF signature distribution and individual developer account distribution.

When Lin Hui worked in his previous life, when it came to this kind of testing, the development team usually directly used corporate signatures to distribute internal test applications.

This distribution method is a privilege of enterprise-level development accounts in the Apple App Store.

Developers in the Apple App Store generally have three types of accounts.

They are personal developer account, company developer account and enterprise developer account.

The Apple enterprise development account is a high-level developer account provided by Apple to iOS developers.

Although Lin Hui's previous account in the app store was already a distinguished developer account.

But in the final analysis it still belongs to a personal developer account.

Functionally speaking, the functions of individual developer accounts in the Apple App Store are still far from those of enterprise-level accounts.

Of course, the price of enterprise-level development accounts in the Apple App Store is also more expensive than personal accounts and company accounts, with an annual fee of US$299.

And you don’t have to have money to apply for this kind of account.

It is very difficult to apply for a brand new business account through Apple's official website.

On the one hand, when applying for a corporate account, developers need to provide Apple with a large amount of information;

On the other hand, Apple’s approval number for new corporate accounts is also extremely limited.

In short, the current stock of enterprise accounts on the market is relatively rare.

Even many developers who really need an Apple enterprise account cannot apply for an enterprise account.

A major privilege of an enterprise-level account is that you can install signed applications on any iOS device, and there is no limit on the number of installations.

Enterprise signature is a process of packaging the Apple installation package (IPA) with an enterprise account.

Enterprise signature is somewhat similar to digital signature, it is based on asymmetric encryption algorithm.

It refers to using the Apple/Apple enterprise account to package the In House version of the IPA file, which means that the Apple/Apple enterprise account has approved the data.

After the enterprise signs it, the application can be distributed.

The essence of Apple's signature is somewhat similar to the authorization process for installation packages.

Only authorized installation packages can be installed on Apple mobile phone systems.

(It’s outrageous. The installation package also requires authorization.

But considering that Apple authorizes data cables with mfi, it is not surprising that it also authorizes installation packages. )

How to understand this process?

Let’s take Lin Hui’s previous process of launching an application as an example.

After Lin Hui put the application online on the Apple App Store.

It does not mean that these applications can directly face ordinary users.

After that, it still needs to go through official review.

Despite Lin Hui's current situation, the review time for each online application is very short.

But it still needs to be reviewed. Only after review can it be downloaded by other users.

Enterprise-level accounts do not have this restriction.

As long as the enterprise signs it, it can be downloaded by testers.

This signature is valid for approximately one year.

But it is worth noting that the reason Apple provides this feature is to make it more convenient for enterprise-level users to develop, test and distribute apps.

And not for other purposes.

But there are always some companies with magical brain circuits, and blind students can always discover the bright spots.

Some unscrupulous companies often use this mechanism to directly develop some software that you know to circumvent Apple's online review mechanism for software distribution.

On the surface, it seems that such applications are distributed to testers, but in fact they are distributed to some ls users.

Hey hey hey.

Similar to this distribution mechanism is through TF signature.

TF signature, the full name is testflight signature, is the process of uploading IPA files to Apple's official application internal testing platform.

Testflight is Apple's official internal application testing platform. It is similar in nature to the App Store and is an officially recognized distribution channel by Apple.

The Apple/Apple TF signature is currently the only signature on the market that can claim to never lose its signature.

But it only lasts for 90 days of stable use.

It is worth mentioning that it is precisely because of the existence of this mechanism.

As a result, some apps that cannot be put on the App Store will also release software through this channel. .

In this case, some weird iOS apps can only be downloaded through textflight.

But it’s not as casual as a corporate signature.

Listing here also requires review.

It's just relatively loose.

Even so, this relative looseness also contributed to the development of tf.

There was even a time when textflight was often called the second AppStore because of its rich applications.

If Lin Hui conducts the test, there is a high probability that it will be conducted in this way.