Apple’s TestFlight app testing platform is getting an upgrade. With the new version of Xcode 11 announced this afternoon at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, TestFlight apps will automatically enable user feedback. Now, when a user shares a screenshot from the Testflight app they’re trialing, they will have a new option to share it as beta feedback while also optionally adding their comments. The idea is to prompt more users to offer feedback, by making it more of built-in experience than before.
It’s also a feature found in the popular app feedback platform, Instabug. It was a feature in Buddybuild, which Apple acquired in January 2018.
Developers will be able to review all the feedback they receive on App Store Connect, and can download the details for later reference.
The update, while minor, could allow developers to catch more bugs and other issues during the user testing process before launching their app to the wider public on the iOS App Store. And for the end user, it simplifies the process of testing apps and giving feedback — something in the past they may have neglected to do since it may have required filling out a form or emailing the developer directly.
The change was one of two updates related to app feedback announced today.
Additionally, when users opt into sharing, app developers will also receive anonymized metrics for battery life, launch time, and memory leaks. These will be aggregated and display in the organizer next to the crash and energy use metrics, and are meant to offer developers another way to monitor and improve their app’s performance.
Apple notes that it actually began collecting these aggregated metrics this spring with iOS 12.2, so many apps will already have this data available.
