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Appendix D

Testing on an iOS Device

The iOS Simulator is a handy tool for testing your application as you are developing it. However, it is no substitute for testing on an actual device—certain features, like the accelerometer, cannot be tested on the simulator at all.

Testing your application on your device is slightly different from giving it to a small number of users for beta testing. When it is your own device, you can physically connect it to your Mac and use Xcode to test/debug your app while it executes on the device. Distributing your app to a few users for beta testing is achieved through Ad Hoc distribution—a process covered in detail in Appendix E.

Before you can test your app on a device, you need to prepare the device for testing and configure a few options in Xcode. The process itself can seem quite complicated at first. This appendix goes through the various steps required to test your apps on a device with Xcode.

Obtaining and Registering UDIDs

Each iOS device has a unique 40-digit identifier, commonly referred to as the device UDID. Before you can test your app on a device with Xcode, you will need to register the UDID of that device with the iOS Provisioning Portal. You can obtain this UDID through the Xcode Organizer.

To obtain the UDID for a device, simply connect it to your Mac and access the Organizer from the Xcode toolbar. Click the device in the list on the left-hand side and note the value of the Identifier field (Figure D-1).

To register a device for ...