Interested to hear from anyone using AppFlow (we are in our 30 day trial at the moment). I had assumed I would continue to do my own dev builds locally and work that way and only use AppFlow for builds/deploys that were to be distributed for testing but having used it for a few days I’m wondering now if devs use AppFlow for all their device builds including their day to day development builds i.e maybe work on stuff in the browser using ionic serve and use AppFlow whenever you want a device build? If you are using it I’d love to know what your workflow is?
Hi I am in my trial too atm, very new to all this… I was hoping to never to have to build locally IOS, this was the inital reason to try AppFlow but apparently you have to build or at least run XCode to push the IPA to App Store Connect. After that we will be able to update the code base without pushing a new binary. Am I on the right track to understand the processes ?
Hi. Thanks for replying. Ionic have just announced automated App Store submissions via AppFlow so that would solve your problem. It’s not available on all plans yet though - see their blog for more details. How are you finding AppFlow generally? I really like it so far although it’s early days - we have a few weeks left of the trial.
Its too early for me to judge but I love the initiative and I like the UI / UX simple and clear 
Thanks for the link, I am still wrapping my head around the whole process…
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I’m really liking the automations / destinations and native-configs etc. I’ve pretty much followed what Nick Hyatt does in this video and it’s working really nicely so far
I really like it, but I still do most of my builds locally and only use appflow for the version I plan to deploy. It is worth the time setting up the automations, it makes it safer to ensure you are using the correct configuration for the production version. Ionic Deploy is a really good feature, saves a heap of time by bypassing the store.
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Hi @Vigors - out of interest how many live deploys do you do a year? The 25,000 a month with the Growth plan is just not enough for us so I am not sure whether we will be able to use Deploy other than for live updates to internal test devices.
We wouldn’t be anywhere near hitting our limit, our apps are very niche and we have also only recently started using it. Just looking at the definition of what counts as a deploy is, I can see how you could hit your limit quickly.
Still though, it is almost instantly distributes your changes, while a store can take hours or days.
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Hi,
Did you find a way to use AppFlow for dev builds instead of build the app locally?
I think we can do something like this (iOS example):
-Link your app to Applflow with ionic deploy with a Development channel ( create it in Ionic Appflow dashboard )
-Build and deploy your app to App Store so you can invite yourself on Testflight
-Install the app on your device, which is now linked with your Development Channel
-Do your code edits locally ( testing it using ionic serve first) and push to Appflow the changes.
-Live deploy the edits to the Development Channel so you can find and test it on your device on startup ( or next opening depending on the --update-method you have choosen )
It’s an idea and I’ll testing it soon, but I think it can be works.
what do you think about it?
Hi devgroupsnc,
You are right! You can leverage Appflow for development builds and directly deploy to Appstore for Testflight testing.
When TestFlight is used in combination with Appflow, Live updates can be delivered to the testers throughout the testing cycle by deploying Live updates to the corresponding channels.
You can refer to the docs explaining a similar workflow (Testing using Appstore Testflight) available here
Give it a try and if you are facing any further issues, I would encourage you to contact the Appflow support for further assistance.
Thanks,
Thanks @Likhith_Aalla
I’ve tested this flow today and it works like a charme.
I only have some difficult trying to change Channel to my app.
Shall I have to completely remove the cordova-plugin-ionic and “ionic deploy add....” again?
Or it should will works only changing the Channel name in the package.json?
I’ll consider do contact the Appflow support…
Thank you!