What are the main differences in iPhone project build settings for Debug build and Distribution build?

Question

I want to make sure I am using the most correct build settings for my distribution build, which is based off of my Release build settings. Right now I am not seeing a whole lot of difference between the settings for Debug build and Distribution build. Is it safe to just go with the default settings?

Answer 1

Debug:

The debug build settings include debugging symbols in your application binary and usually turn of compile time optimizations which may affect the code execution path. Debugging symbols allow you to get meaningful information while stepping through the code in a debugger. The setting is also useful if you have setup an application logging macro for instance. It would let you enable/disable it for development and distribution.

Release:

Release will most likely give you a smaller binary, and faster execution time with optimizations enabled.

Definitely go with the distribution build settings.

Answer 2

The difference is in the profiles you are using for code-sign, where for Debug build you're using your Developer profile and for the Distribution build (Ad-hoc or AppStore) you need to create ad-hoc or AppStore profiles respectively. Of course Debug builds has sym file included with a symbolic table for debugging your code.