I'm trying to add 50 beta testers to my app through ad hoc. In the portal, it gives you an option to upload a file for UDIDS. What format should it be? Also, it mentioned that you are only limited to 100 devices per year and they cannot be changed. Does this mean once I added my beta testers, they cannot be changed forever, even for other apps?
+1
A:
I'd start with trying a simple newline-separated file of UDIDs. Make a plain text file in TextEdit or Notepad, then format it something like:
UDID1 UDID2 ...
As for the 100-UDID limit, you can delete those whenever you like, but you can only add 100 devices per year. So if you add 50 now, and 50 tomorrow, that's it for the year. You can delete all of them a week from now, and you'll be stuck with 0 UDIDs until the new year, since you can't add more than the 100 you already used. Moral of the story: add UDIDs carefully.
Tim
2009-08-27 14:29:34
wow that is quite limiting, what is the reason behind this? If I develope many many apps throughout the year, how am I suppose to beta test?
erotsppa
2009-08-27 15:58:29
Apple puts this restriction in place so that they can avoid people who were rejected from distributing via the App Store getting their apps out by ad hoc distribution. If they allow too many UDIDs to be registered, a developer can simply say, "Want my app? Send me your UDID and I'll give you a copy within a few days - never mind that Apple didn't approve the app to be distributed in the first place."
Tim
2009-08-27 17:27:20
Keep in mind that there's no restriction on sending people source code (if you're OK with that sort of thing) - just have them download the iPhone SDK and play with the simulator for testing, or have them sign up for their own developer accounts so they can generate their own certificates. It's a pain, and expensive, I agree, but it's really the only scalable route to beta-testing.
Tim
2009-08-27 17:28:54
A:
I just verified how it works to bulk upload devices. You should use a tab delimited text file that looks like:
device_id_hex_40_chars description_text
... ...
Save this as a text file and upload to iPhone Developer Program->Devices->Upload Devices.
It should also be possible to upload a file in XML-format, but haven't found documentation how that's supposed to be structured. I guess it's easier if you're in the Enterprise program and can manage all devices in the iPhone Configuration Utility.
Ciryon
2009-12-14 12:02:06