Can I automate tests on a physical ios device using Testflight builds?

Question

I have 57+ apps to test. They are delivered to me via Testflight. Is there a way I can setup automated tests using the .ipa builds from Testflight with appium on my physical iOS devices? Creating adhoc builds with a provisioning profile in xcode for all 57 apps is going to completely defeat the purpose of setting up an automated framework. The builds come fast and I need to be able to download them via test flight and run my tests.

Creating individual provisioning profiles for each app to automate through xcode is just not going to be sufficient.

Goal:

Given user has downloaded all apps on a physical iOS device via Testflight.

When device is connected to a mac with appium test code ready in Eclipse.

Then automated tests can be conducted using the builds installed on the phone.

Answer 1

Wanted to post an update in the event that someone else comes across a problem like this. The short answer is, no, not in this case.

While individual profiles are not needed for each app, the same profile does need to be used to sign each app. Further, the app must be able to be installed successfully on the test device prior to testing ( ie a working build) and the build must be available via path for appium to use in the test.

So far I have achieved success by setting up the entire development environment on my mac and created my own development builds signed by the same ID used to create my test agent runner. After creating a .app using xcode, I was able to copy the path and target in eclipse and automate a launch using appium.

We did attempt using an ipa created by fastlane but the build kept failing for me upon install on the device and the path of least resistance ended up being a .app target.