General Questions to get started officially as Mac Developer

Unity Engine
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So I have already set up my Unity project for Android builds, Android testing ect. Seems pretty easy with Android after getting the SDKs and phone USB drives working with Unity.

Just bought a macbook pro since I needed a laptop and a computer to do iOS builds.

About to get started with Mac but I was hoping I could get some answers before I begin. I’ve tried to look this stuff up but it’s been tough finding specific details about everything. And I’m sure the Mac Developer website stuff has nothing to do with Unity.

So here’s some questions:

  1. I’m going to be buying the $99 Mac Developer fee very soon. Now when I do this does it matter which devices I register to my Mac Developer account?

Does it set like a main device which is always bound to your account? Or can I freely use any devices I want with no limitations?

  1. I don’t currently own an iOS device. But after spending around $6500 dollars very recently for all the Unity Pro stuff and this laptop I’m really hoping I can use my friends + team members devices to do the iOS builds.

Is it possible to use other peoples devices with no conflicts with the Apple Developer stuff?

  1. Assuming I can use someone else’s device for the initial iOS build, can I easily distribute the .app to the rest of the team/testers without any conflicts?

With Android once I build an .apk I can do whatever I want with it, upload it to Google Drive, put on USB drives, email, etc. There never seems to be any problems it’s as if they had the fully functional app from the Google Play Store.

With iOS does it work the same way?

  1. If distributing the .app for iOS does not work the same way as distributing the .apk for Android what are the differences and how does one go about doing this?

It seems like it should be a straightforward process given how prosperous the iOS app stores are, there must be an easy way to distribute the apps to testers? But knowing Apple I’m afraid there are all kinds of problems doing this involving them making more money.

Do all testers need to have a unique Apple Developer account to get the apps to work?

  1. Are there any recommended ways to easily distribute apps for testers without them needing a Apple Developer Account?

I’ve heard of sites like http://testflightapp.com/ but I’m REALLY hoping I can just send them easily like with Android .apk

  1. Any other general advice or information about any details I’m missing would be greatly appreciated. I may have to update this thread if I run into more problems or think of new questions.
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The iOS developer website has a lot to do with Unity, since Unity produces an XCode project, so I’d recommend starting there, since most of the process is the same. Don’t confuse Mac and iOS development; those are two different things.

–Eric

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Hmm I see, that’s good to know and news to me! Shows how much I know about what I’ve gotten myself into haha.

I’ll update post if I still have questions after checking all this out in next few days.

4

No.

If you have access to their device you can add a provisioning profile, and download the game to is using Xcode.

Look up Ad-hoc builds. You can ship the game to 100 devices for testing.

TestFlight is very highly regarded. See:

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/IDEs/Conceptual/AppDistributionGuide/TestingYouriOSApp/TestingYouriOSApp.html

for an Apple-way of doing the same.

I would personally say you need at least one iOS device for testing purposes. You will need to have a device connected to your Mac every time you make a build. It’s a big ask to borrow a mate’s device every time you do this. Maybe get an old iPhone4 or an iPad1 or something, pre-owned, so you have something cheap to use.

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Thanks for the info that’s very helpful! I’ll update post later if I have more questions once I get going with this stuff.

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K so I ended up just getting an iPad Air on Black Friday, I think you guys were right about it being too much a hassle to always try to use a friends device. I’m kinda OCD about trying to fix things as soon as I find problems so I’ve already done so many builds I 100% need my own iOS device for this.

Especially after seeing how screwed up everything gets for my GUI when going from my PC/MAC/ANDROID resolution of 1280x720 (16:9) which seemed to work fine for all the testers before to the 1024 x 768 (4:3) which is half the resolution of iPad Air and the same resolution as the iPad 2. So I think the biggest headache will be figuring out how to deal with this nutty new resolution Apple so graciously provided for me. 1280 x 720 seemed like such a stable build resolution to format all the GUI with but the iPad just kicked a big hole in that plan. I think the iPhones also have some extremely unorthodox resolution settings so this is just gonna be fun and dandy :slight_smile:

So few questions so far:

1) What is up with these keys?

I’m having a real hard time figuring out what is the point of all this stuff seems like overkill times 1000 to me but so far the only way it’s effecting me is I’m getting this message right before my build completes I have to allow it or my build will fail.

codesign wants to sign using key “<(generic key name)>” in your keychain
do you want to allow access to this item?

I can’t seem to find any key with the name they are showing and have no idea what key they are referring to. Pressing the little ? button on the message doesn’t do anything. I’ve looked in the plist for starters but I’m not seeing anything with that name even with using the “Show Raw Keys/Values”.

So far just allowing this has worked for my own device but I have no idea what that even means and I fear not understanding this stuff could cause issues down the road.

2) Why does the GameKit framework seem to be trying so hard to be enabled by default? Do I really need this it seems to be trying to force it’s way into my project trying to give like notifications to enable it when I don’t want to.

3) Why does the iOS file get so big? My iOS file in my project directory is already over 1GB but my .apk is less than 100 MB?! Seems a tad bit unusual to me…

I’ve been trying to replace the xcode project every time since I have no idea what I’m doing and there’s no need to like create 50 projects as I’m trying to figure things out. It seems that replacing the projects is actually adding to the size though?

My project directory gained about 700 MB today and all I did was add one new scene. So I’m guessing “Replace” doesn’t actually work correctly and creates tons of duplicates?

How does one go about doing multiple builds with Xcode? With Android they actually overwrite the .apk Xcode it doesn’t seem to work that way.

4) I haven’t actually set up the ad hoc provisioning profile yet because I want to have the build I’m ready to send before I do it. Am I wrong here and I can just do it now and it will persist for my whole account or will changing any settings or starting over with Xcode to ditch the 1gb xcode file make me have to do a new ad hoc provisioning account?

I have some team members ready to go with their UDID devices or whatever random name Apple gave the Device ID’s. Just really have no idea what the heck I’m doing to be honest. None of this makes any sense to me.

5) How does Apple get away with this nonsense? I’ve never seen such an overly complicated system or set of directions in my entire life. I’d have to spend 3 years re-reading all this stuff before I would start comprehending this.

They should pay me $99 dollars a year for using this silly system not the other way around.

Maybe I’m just spoiled with Unity but this seems like a joke to me, it’s a miracle my game even runs looking at all this.

I haven’t even had any problems yet other than the resolution stuff, but I anticipate many to come and I’m not excited about it. So glad Unity does at least some of the work for me converting the project to xcode, even using their system for the final touches looks like torture. I think if I had to develope a game with Xcode from scratch I’d have to blow my brains out within 2 days :slight_smile:

Am I only here? Why can’t iOS be like Android where it’s like ok I built my game with Unity already now let me do what I want with it… why do they force so much excessive bologna into their system wow…

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K I just deleted the whole iOS folder after backing up the entire project directory.

After building a new xcode project after just 1 build the file is already 583 MB. Is this normal?

I’m gonna try my best to look for answers to all my questions I know my questions might be a bit broad or vague. Maybe this whole Unity to Xcode thing is a lot more natural for other people so it all makes sense. Hopefully I’ll understand it soon, maybe I’m just over thinking it. I tend to want to know how everything works and all the xCode documentation and configuration options + directions seems a bit overwhelming.