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As far as I know both the regular and enterprise developer programs both have a 100 iPhone limit for development. I don't mean distributing the app for testing where the limit is higher, but for plugging the phone in for debugging with Xcode.

How do larger companies deal with this limit? If they have multiple teams that are working on multiple apps, each with their own set of devices, and especially if developers can bring their own device to test on, it seems quite easy to get over the 100 device limit.

I know there's the simulator, but this doesn't help for testing things like VoiceOver.

For example if there are 5 teams for just 5 apps, and each team has a set of debugging devices (eg 2x SE, 2x non Plus, 2x Plus, 2x X) as well as their personal devices to test on (eg 8 devs), that's 80 devices already. And this assumes that the list of devices has been well maintained.

wristbands
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Jonathan.
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    Multiple accounts, most likely. – RibaldEddie Apr 16 '18 at 04:56
  • If it was multiple accounts, they'd show as separate developers on the app store right? So how does Google do it with dozens of apps under the same developer: "Google Inc." – Jonathan. Apr 16 '18 at 17:08
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    Have each department (likely <100 chairs) have their own Apple account for dev/debug, once good, have master "Google Inc." account actually submit it to the store. – Uberfuzzy Apr 16 '18 at 17:38
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    how on earth is this too broad?!?!!? – Ewan Apr 16 '18 at 17:54
  • @Jonathan I guess we test differently. Ive run into the limit because we had banks of test devices running UI tests or because sales guys want to use one of the 100 to show off the lastest version. but tend to debug on simulators – Ewan Apr 16 '18 at 17:54
  • I believe you can request a higher limit from apple if you can justify it to them. which I imagine google can – Ewan Apr 16 '18 at 18:01
  • @RH 100 might seem like a lot but everyone and their dog wants to show the dam thing off on their phone. – Ewan Apr 16 '18 at 18:02
  • also I believe there are ways to deploy an app without a dev account with a bit of hacking – Ewan Apr 16 '18 at 18:06
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    I don't understand how this is too broad, it would be really useful if people who vote for it were required to comment on why.. – Jonathan. Apr 17 '18 at 05:46
  • @Uberfuzzy, this is what my team has been doing so far, but now we want to use features like universal links and web credentials which depend on the team ID and bundle ID, so it seems like these should be consistent between development and production? – Jonathan. Apr 17 '18 at 05:47
  • @Ewan, isn't UI Tests something that should be done on the simulator, whereas testing things like VoiceOver can only be done on device. – Jonathan. Apr 17 '18 at 05:49
  • I havent used voice over, but I have found that you need to test the UI on an actual device. the simulator is much faster and doesnt have the quirks of the devices. This is less so for ios vs android i guess though – Ewan Apr 17 '18 at 06:43
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    Why not ask Apple how to work around this problem? – Joeri Sebrechts Apr 17 '18 at 07:33
  • Multiple accounts (subsidiary corporations, consultants, etc.) with dummy bundle IDs for internal-only testing. One official account for app submission and external testing. – hotpaw2 Aug 15 '18 at 00:34
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    Just as a guess, if you're Google (or Facebook or Amazon), your business guys go talk to Apple's business guys and you work a deal. It's just business. – davidbak Dec 25 '21 at 00:41

1 Answers1

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You use a third party app store to deploy to internal and or test devices

https://www.mobileiron.com/de/lösungen/betriebssystemübergreifende-verwaltung/ios-management

Ewan
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    I literally said in my question, I didn't mean distributing the app for testing, but for plugging the phone in for debugging with Xcode. – Jonathan. Apr 16 '18 at 17:07
  • 100 devices is a lot for development. My guess is that this is not a problem for 99 percent of companies anyway. – Robert Harvey Apr 16 '18 at 17:18
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    But if there are like 5 teams for just 5 apps, and each team has a set of debugging devices (eg 2x SE, 2x non Plus, 2x Plus, 2x X) as well as their personal devices to test on (eg 8 devs), that's 80 devices already. – Jonathan. Apr 17 '18 at 05:45
  • ill come back on this since I got an upvote. I dont think this scenario occurs. If your company is that large, its not having devs plug in their own devices to debug in xcode anymore. They are deploying to test farms where the same set of devices are shared by all apps, they have test teams which are deploying via internal stores, they are exporting crash dumps etc – Ewan Nov 02 '22 at 10:33