IPA Targets for iPhone — Why and How?

July 3, 2010 John Blanco iPhone

Admittedly, one of the most annoying parts of building iPhone apps for clients is merely giving them the app to install. The usual case is that you hand them a *.app directory that, to a Mac user, looks like a file, but to a client using Windows it’s a directory. And when Windows users open this directory, files tend to be added by Windows Explorer. This wouldn’t be so bad except that the content changes rewrite the hash signature and users then have trouble installing your iPhone Ad Hoc builds.

It’s gotten so bad that the first thing I tell clients when they have trouble is to “re-download the build and DO NOT OPEN THE FOLDER.” 9 times out of 10 this fixes the problem, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

What is an IPA?

Enter IPA’s. The best that I can tell, an IPA is just Apple’s internal way of bundling apps together. Luckily, we can do it, too! What is an IPA? It’s a file. YES. A file. A real one. What this means is that your clients (and heck, even some of your fellow developers!) can’t mess it up. :-)

Setting Up an IPA Build Target

Simple! All you need to do is set up a new build target. I call mine IPA, but you can call it whatever you want. Here’s the process:

1. Create a new build target, of type “Other/Aggregate” (see the Mac OS X section)
2. Add the build targets you want to build IPA’s for as direct dependents. This means they will get built before the IPA target is built.
3. Add a new Run Script Build Phase to the IPA target.
4. Now cut and paste the following code:

   APPS="MyAppName"
   
   cd $CONFIGURATION_BUILD_DIR
   
   for i in $APPS
   do
   	echo Creating IPA for $i.app
   	mkdir -p Payload
   	cp -R $i.app Payload 
   	cp $SRCROOT/Resources/itunes-icon.png $CONFIGURATION_BUILD_DIR/iTunesArtwork
   	zip -qr $i.ipa Payload iTunesArtwork
   	rm -rf Payload
   	rm iTunesArtwork
   done
   
   

   The only things you need to change in the above is MyAppName and whatever your iTunes artwork is called (the 512×512 version). The artwork isn’t vital, but it appears in your iTunes library when you install and it’s ugly not to see an icon.

   Replace MyAppName with whatever your *.app name is. The best way to figure this out is to double click your app’s regular target, click the Build Tab, and find the value for “Product Name”.

   Now, to build the IPA just set your Active Target to IPA, use whatever build configuration you want, and you’re good to go!

   • 
   • 
   • 
   

   John Blanco

   John Blanco is a freelance iOS developer living in Lakewood, Colorado. He's been developing mobile apps for over 15 years, beginning in the medieval days of Java ME and Blackberry and all the way through iPhone and Android! He's led development on dozens of apps across a wide variety of domains such as retail, vision, orthotics, games, sports, and more!

   More Posts - Website

   Follow Me:
   

   iPhone, xcode

   Too Many Images Slowing Down Interface Builder 10 Things Apple Could Do to Make iPhone Development Perfect

   Comments are currently closed.