Database Reference
In-Depth Information
For companies used to shipping code and managing stock, the iTunes ways of life is
going to come as a bit of a shock. Getting a product up and released through the store
is a delicate dance that needs to be well planned, especially if you need to hit a launch
date precisely. Because of the “only ever one version in the store” reality, you need to
think carefully about how to manage client-server version mismatches. If you're going
to use Ad Hoc provisioning for your testers, you can end up spending half your life
managing the UDID list in iTunes, so that the app can be tested on a new device.
Enterprise licenses can relieve a lot of this headache, but they come with their own
complications, including having to juggle keychains to create your builds.
There's only so far that technology can help with these problems; strategy may prove
a better ally.
Chapter 7
talks about how to provision and distribute your application
without going insane, and the hard decisions you may have to end up making.
The Road Is Long and Winding
Just because you have your first release out doesn't mean your headaches are over.
When dealing with client-server architectures, it's important that the client and server
stay in sync, and that's hard when iTunes insists that you can only have one version of
your software available for sale at any one time.
Chapter 8
deals with the travails of maintaining iOS applications over the long haul,
and offers some strategies for how to attack the problem.
A Few Caveats
Given the glacial pace of the Java Community Process, you can write about Java de-
velopment without much fear the language is going to slip out from under you over-
night. Objective-C is much more…dynamic.
It is almost a sure thing that something (or several somethings) discussed in this topic
will be overtaken by changes to the development environment. It's as up to date as I
can make it, especially in reference to the recent release of iOS 5. Note that because
people are still discovering how some things have changed (for the good or not) in iOS
5, it's possible that there will be information that will need to be updated in the errata
(see
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920021759.do
)
or future reprints as things
move forward. Honestly, iOS is always a moving target, both from a development and
licensing standpoint.
Also, although I may talk about something as a best practice, your mileage may vary.
Different companies have different comfort levels about change. Company A might be
fine with using git as a source control system, while company B insists on CVS. You're
going to need to temper the desire to “do the right thing” with the realities of how your
workplace operates.
