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“Sometimes it is better to refine the wheel rather than re-invent it”

What constitutes an original idea? When it comes to tech, that depends on what you class as original. The concept? The implementation? The user interface….? The list is endless. Sometimes however you naturally develop a product that pushes the boundaries of all these areas, so much so that the result itself is unique.

InstallFish is such an example. InstallFish is the natural evolution of a concept that arose from an in-house need to distribute apps to our clients. We needed a fast reliable way to give our testers access to products that are still in development. We looked at the current offering on the market and tested each one, unfortunately despite them being fantastic in certain areas they each lacked significantly in others. The main issue with the existing offerings is the experience of actually getting the app out to the end user. In each case there were too many steps involved and occasionally the whole process was just downright complex!

With simple workflow being a key success factor we decided to build our own. We built the core functionality from the ground up, meaning it met its prime use case (simplicity) straight away. Not longer did we need to give complex instructions to our users, we developed a system where we could simply hand out a link and within seconds our end user had the app installed on their iOS or Android device. The whole process fitted our needs perfectly and we learned a lot from user feedback during its development. Having an intimate knowledge of app development workflow certainly helped us.

From here we started extending the functionality and addressing specific uses cases that sat on top of the core platform. Sometimes this meant rebuilding parts of the system but the result was a sleeker more user friendly experience, so much so that it became the exclusive tool to use not only in house but also when delivering apps to our clients. We quickly realised this system could be of huge value to the wider developer community and set about adding everything we could think of to make your life as a developer easier. Integrations, automatic provisioning, native email, client analytics, bespoke app stores and flexible branding, were all integrated into a seamless user experience that we hope massively increases mobile development workflow.

Today the entire system is an integrated platform that has been shaped by suggestions from our app developers and beyond. We are extremely proud of it and believe it is the easiest, fastest most effortless app distribution platform out there. Not only that but our clients are a much happier bunch as instead of handing them a complicated list of instructions on how to get UDID’s, sign up for accounts and validate email credentials, we simply hand/email them a short link and within seconds they have the app on their device.

We didn’t reinvent the wheel just took it and made it roll much, much faster!

Our platform is built with developers in mind. Every feature we develop is directly linked to increasing workflow and making your life as a dev that little bit easier. This is why we love feedback from the community, good or bad we want to hear what you have to say. This is the only way we can truly shape the platform to be exactly as you want it.

To give you an example of the kind of features we think help, take a look at the Appcelerator Studio plugin or the native email from the app dashboard. Both of these features might only save you a few minutes each time you need them, but if you need them 10 times everyday then they are things worth having.

So if you have even the smallest request let us know. You can get in touch via our contact form or email hello@installfish.com. We respond to all correspondence as soon as we can.

Shortly after we officially launched we had a user request come in to integrate Slack into our system. We knew Slack had been picking up a huge amount of attention recently but the problem was none of our team had ever used it. We are all part of the Hipchat movment.

All this aside we decided to have pop at integrating Slack.

It took less than 2 hours to go from knowing nothing about the platform to integrating fully with our app notification system this was in no small part due to the fantastic Slack documentation and their powerful webhooks framework.

Today you can set up Slack notifications by inputting all the required details in your app dashboard. Add your webhook endpoint, your channel name (with no #, just the basename) and add an emoji if you like (surround this with colons ::). If you have never used Slack before this is gibberish, however I am confident you could set up and utilize it within an hour should you want to try it out.

We have had a good few requests regarding our automatic UDID collection system so we thought we would write a quick blog post to shed some light on the process. First let me explain how it all came about.

During the evolution of InstallFish one of the features that lingered on the hit-list was always automatic UDID collection. We knew this would make provisioning A LOT less problematic but the issue was finding a solution that streamlined the whole process and tied in with our mantra of keeping things simple.

We spent a lot of time playing with code snippets and tweaking logic here and there but never had a robust enough solution to include in any proper release. Various members of the team had a crack at it until the point we were left with a scattered code implementation and no clear idea of how it all came together.

It was time to bite the bullet, as more and more clients were frustrated retrieving their UDID via conventional means. So 2 of our tech leads locked themselves away in a quite room for a couple of days, went back to the drawing board and emerged at the other side with a UDID collection system that is as simple as it gets.

"Give me the skinny" I hear you say.... Ok it is this easy:

1. Append your app url with /udid and tell your client to visit it on their Apple device
2. They will be prompted for their name, have them input it and hit the submit button
3. They will be prompted to install a provisioning certificate, have them accept it
4. THATS IT! Seriously, the UDID will now be on its way to you via email and it will also be available to view via your app dashboard.

Expecting more? We did say it was easy!

We build cross platform apps using Appcelerator Studio so thought building a plugin for InstallFish was a no brainier.

If you are part of the Titan movement and would like to get your hands on the plugin simply follow these steps:

1. Open Studio & launch the package manager
2. For the url insert http://installfish.com/plugin
3. Download the plugin and it should auto install
4. Upload an app by building it then clicking the InstallFish icon in the top bar
5. Fill in the dialog box, making sure you have the right API key for the app in question (find this on your app dashboard page if you have forgotten)
6. Thats it! Your app will now be on its merry way over to InstallFish where we will look after it.