Blog

We had a backlog from the initial launch and took on board the feedback from our users to develop the platform even further. We also gave the system a face lift to get rid of some clutter and streamline the interface a little more.

Some of the additions are subtle, others are immediately apparent.

QR Codes

You will notice we now support and offer QR codes for every app. This allows your to embed you install url anywhere simply by tagging on /qr to your install url. For instance:

img src="https://installfish.com/test/qr"

Automatically generates this qr image:

Check the source you will see what we mean. It will come through as a 300x300px png image for you to do with what you please.

App Icons

We tweaked the way we parse ipa files and now dynamically pull out the most suitable icon asset. On the off chance there is not a suitable asset or you just fancy changing it we added the option of uploading a custom app icon. This will be rendered at 60x60px so advise at least that size, with 2x or 3x being preferred.

Rich Text Support For What's New

You can now edit the app 'What's New' description in rich text format. This adds a much neater layout when rendered on the app install screen and lets you display lists in a much more efficient way.

Transactional Email Support

We have also beefed up our transactional email service so you can be sure all your emails get delivered. If you have a business critical need to have this information fed back to you let us know and we can sort that out.

Bug Fixes

Like any system in the wild we occasionally discover bugs. Luckily our user base is great and are always quick to let us know of any problems. We fixed a few issues in this release but if you see any more let us know!

Recently we had an enterprise client who was heavily invested in Mobile Iron. They utilised Mobile Iron's security wrapping features but really disliked the restrictive nature of the app distribution and the "clunky UI" they had to deal with. In step InstallFish, our client already used us to distribute beta apps out with their Mobile Iron workflow and they loved the simplicity of our platform. We extended some of our core functionality which allowed them to upload any of their Mobile Iron wrapped apps and send them out via InstallFish.

The end result is a thing of beauty, the client can have their cake and eat it, no compromises were made to their current infrastructure, they were able to seamlessly integrate Installfish into their existing app distribution framework.

Can I Do It?

YES! This functionality is now part of the InstallFish core so if you use Mobile Iron go grab a wrapped app upload it to us, pull it down to any Mobile Iron enabled device and watch the magic happen.

We love that we can make these changes to accommodate our clients. To date we have extended numerous features and in some cases built completely new core functionality. We have been praised for our response times, which is great as keeping our customers happy is one of our top priorities.

One of the benefits of an independently created platform is the ability to react and stay ahead of changes.

During the iOS9 beta roll out may users of TestFlight were left waiting on Apple shifting into gear to offer support for iOS9 distribution and testing. Luckily we didn't have that limitation. As we are not platform specific you can distribute ANY version of iOS OR Android as soon as it's released (see below for the latest caveats of iOS9)

For this reason none of our users had interruptions in their development work flow and due to the increased rate of betas being rolled out we think this is just another great little perk of using InstallFish.

Explicate Trust Changes

Apple have tightened security in the latest official iOS9 release and they now require you to explicitly trust downloads from 3rd parties. To do this visit Settings>General>Profiles and click to trust any of the profiles listed. New profiles will be automatically added as you download new apps.

Once you have trusted the new profile you can open the newly downloaded app and any further apps signed by the same profile.

Package IDs

Another little niggle of the iOS9 update is the bundle id checking. If you already have an app installed and wish to download a new version occasionally the device will recognize the bundle ID as a duplicate and ignore the new manifest file, in order to force the device to download the new version, delete the old one first and reboot the device. It is a minor annoyance and happens in a handful of cases.

UDID Collection

This is the same as always, you can still automatically grab users UDID but simply adding /udid to the end of your install url. Super simple from the client perspective and one less thing for you to worry about.