Essential iOS Build and Release

Chapter 5. Build and Release

The purpose of this chapter is to show you how to prepare and build your app for distribution. We’ve covered the creation of the App ID, certificates, and Provisioning Profiles in earlier chapters; now it’s time to bring everything together and build. We’ll cover several build-specific Xcode settings and then move on to common build scenarios such as building for the iOS Simulator, and building for Ad Hoc & App Store Distribution. Finally, we’ll cover setting up a “record” for your app on the iTunes Connect website and using that record to upload your build for it to be available on the App Store.

Xcode Build Settings

Xcode provides many options to set or add custom configurations for your app. It would be impossible to cover all of them here, and in the interest of getting your app built and ready for distribution, we will only cover the most common settings that pertain to building. For further reading on the various customizations available, see the “Build and Run Your App” section of the Xcode 4 User Guide.

Understanding Xcode Settings

Within the Xcode project editor, you will notice there are many configuration settings that are redundant between project-level and target-level settings. Here are a few pointers that will help you figure out which setting Xcode ultimately utilizes during the build process:

• Project-level settings are global settings that apply to all targets. Settings at the target level are considered “lower-level” settings and are applicable ...