Before launching our app to digital stores, we need to test it so that we can hold back all potential issues before it comes to the hands of our users. Therefore, we need a QA team that tests our app. As you may have seen, in mat|r, we can perform this step with the viewer, giving them access to our app with tester permissions. However, when we have to test our app to submit it to stores, we need other tools. This tool is provided by Firebase through App Distribution.

App Distribution makes distributing your apps to your trusted quality testers easier. If your apps get to testers’ devices quickly, you’ll be able to get feedback early and often. And if you use Crashlytics in the apps, you’ll automatically obtain stability metrics of all your builds, so you can know when you’re ready to submit them.

To be able to use this functionality, we need to go to Firebase console and then to App Distribution, located in the left side panel.

Once there, we can upload our latest build prior to launch. When our build is uploaded (APK or IPA), we have to invite testers.

This way, testers will be able to monitor the app to know its stability. In combination with Crashlytics and mat|r, we’ll be able to spot errors before uploading the app to digital stores.

When you have new builds, you only have to upload them and send them to previously permitted testers in App Distribution. These testers will get notifications that there’s a new build to test.

Conclusion:

With App Distribution, we have the possibility to distribute our builds prior to uploading them to digital stores to verify their stability. 

This way, we’ll be able to have builds with great stability to upload to stores thanks to a fast distribution to our testers, so that they test them using this simple tool provided by Firebase.

To be continued