Apple today began informing legacy TestFlight users that the services on TestFlightApp.com will no longer be available after February 26th, 2015. Apple bought the popular software testing distribution service through its acquisition of Burstly almost a year ago, and announced plans at WWDC 2014 to roll out its own version of the service in the future. Since then, Apple has integrated TestFlight beta testing for app developers with iTunes Connect.
TestFlight users were informed of the legacy service shutdown coming next month through both an email blast and a support document published today.
“Apps from TestFlightApp.com will not be transferred to the new service. App Developers will need to set up their apps for the new TestFlight Beta Testing in iTunes Connect.”
As mentioned above, TestFlight now directs users to transition their apps and testers to Apple’s TestFlight Beta Testing platform through the iTunes Connect developer portal.
While Apple purchased TestFlight to offer its own in-house robust beta distribution service for developers with up to 1,000 external beta testers, alternative services remain available for developers wanting to avoid the review process Apple requires.
Hockeyapp, which supports various platforms including iOS, Mac, Android, and Windows Phone, was recently acquired by Microsoft although no changes have been made to the service yet and continued support has been promised. Twitter owns through acquisition Crashlytics, another popular alternative beta distribution service.
TestFlight previously shut down support for its SDK and Android beta distribution last year around the time of the Apple purchase.
