With its recent update to TestFlight, Apple has introduced a number of features, such as multiple builds and enhanced groups, that make it possible to do A/B testing for iOS apps.
TestFlight allows now to distribute and test multiple builds of the same app at the same time, whereas until now it only allowed users to distribute a single build. Along with new group-management features, multiple builds provide an effective way to carry through A/B testing, which allow developers to conduct a controlled experiment to compare two variants of a given feature. Once you have multiple builds, you can define custom groups of testers and assign them a different build to test. In fact, no restrictions are posed on the number of builds that a tester can choose from. This also solves a long-standing issue that developers had with TestFlight, namely the impossibility of keeping older builds of an app, which was considered a potential deal-breaker by some developers since it would prevent users going back to a stabler version in case any showstopper bugs appeared.
Additionally, builds are not removed from TestFlight when they go live on the App Store, thus allowing testers to continue using them and provide feedback.
All of these new features can be accessed when using TestFlight 1.5, which can be downloaded from the App Store. Contrary to its previous version, TestFlight 1.5 will not list any apps that have no builds available for testing, even if they are actually installed on the device. This new feature has gained the app a few 1-star reviews.
TestFlight is Apple’s beta testing infrastructure for iOS apps, which was originally acquired in 2014 and later integrated within iTunesConnect.
