In our previous chapter, we updated our TrackMyWalks application to allow us to create and run unit tests using the NUnit and UITest testing frameworks right within the Xamarin Studio IDE. You learned how to write unit tests for our ViewModels to test the business logic to validate that everything is working correctly, before moving on to testing the user interfaces portion using automated UI testing.
In this chapter, you'll look at what is required to submit your TrackMyWalks iOS app to the Apple App Store, and share your creations with the rest of the community.
You'll learn the steps required to set up your iOS development team, as well as the certificates for both development and distribution, and learn how to create the necessary provisioning profiles for both your development and distribution builds, and create the necessary app IDs for your application.
At the end of the chapter, you will learn how to register your iOS devices so that your users can download and test your apps on their iOS devices and learn how to prepare your TrackMyWalks iOS app for submission to iTunes Connect, using the Xamarin Studio IDE.
This chapter will cover the following topics:
- Setting up your iOS development team
- Creating the
TrackMyWalksiOS development certificate - Obtaining the development certificate from Apple
- Registering your iOS devices for testing
- Creating your
TrackMyWalksiOS App ID - Creating the development provisioning profiles
- Preparing your
TrackMyWalksiOS app for submission - Using the provisioning profiles to install the app on the iOS device
- Building and archiving your app for publishing using Xamarin Studio
- Using Xamarin Studio to submit your
TrackMyWalksiOS app to iTunes Connect
You have finally completed building your TrackMyWalks app and are ready to release it to the rest of the world; all you need to do is decide how to deploy and market it. Before you can begin submitting your iOS applications to the Apple App Store for approval, you will need to first set up your iOS development team, which can be achieved by following these steps:
- Log in to the iOS developer portal website at http://developer.apple.com/ .
- Click on the Member Center link that is located right at the top of the screen.
- Sign in to your account using your Apple ID and password. This will then display the developer program resources page, as shown in the following screenshot:
- Next, click on the iTunes Connect button, as highlighted in the preceding screenshot. This is where you can check on various things such as SalesandTrends, Payments and Financial Reports, and App Analytics. Take a look at the following image:
- Next, click on the Users and Roles button, as highlighted in the preceding screenshot. This will bring up the Users and Roles option pane from where you can add a new user, as shown in the following screenshot:
- Ensure that you are within the iTunes Connect Users section, as highlighted in the preceding screenshot. Then, click on the + button to bring up the Add New User screen that is shown in the following screenshot.
- Next, fill in the User Information section for the person that you will be adding to your development team. Once you have finished, click on the Next button, as shown in the following screenshot:
- Next, under the Role section, from the list of roles available, choose what roles the user can perform and then click on the Next button, as shown in the following screenshot:
- Next, from under the Notifications and Settings sections, this is where you will be assigning the ways in which you want the user to be notified. From this screen, you also have the ability of specifying what information relating to a list of territories you want the user to be notified about, as shown in the following screenshot:
- Once you have finished specifying each of the different types of notification methods, click on the Save button, as shown in the preceding screenshot. The new user account will then be created, along with a confirmation e-mail that will be sent to the users, accounts, requesting them to activate their account:
Now that we have covered the necessary steps required to create and assign roles to new users, as well as setting up which user roles can log into the iOS developer portal to manage new and existing users, view Sales and Trends reports, as well as Payments and Financial statements, our next step is to look at the steps involved to generate an iOS development certificate.
This certificate is encrypted and serves the purpose as your digital identification signature, and you must sign your apps using this certificate before you can submit your apps to the Apple App Store.