This tutorial will provide you with instructions on how to publish Flutter App to App Store and TestFlight .
1. Prepare in advance
Before starting the process of publishing your app, make sure you have read Apple's App Store review guidelines.
To publish your app to the App Store, you need to register for the Apple Developer Program. You can view the selection of many different membership types in Apple's Select Membership (Developer Type).
2. Register your App on App Store Connect
App Store Connect(Formerly iTunes Connet) is where you will manage the application life cycle. You will define the name and description of the app, as well as screenshots, set prices, and manage publishing to the App Store and Testflight.
Registering your app requires two steps: registering a unique bundle ID (Bundle ID), and creating an app in your App Store Connect.
For more details about App Store Connect, see the App Store Connect guide.
2.1 Register package ID
Every iOS application is associated with a unique package ID registered with Apple. To register a package ID for your application, please follow the steps below:
(1) Open the App IDs page on your developer account page.
(2) Click + to create a new suit ID.
(3) Enter an App name, select Explicit App ID, and then enter an ID.
(4) Select the service that your App will use, then click to continue
(5) On the next page, confirm the details and click Register to register your Bundle ID.
2.2 Create an application record in App Store Connect
Next, you need to register your app in App Store Connect:
(1) Open App Store Connect in your browser.
(2) On the landing page of App Store Connect, click My Apps.
(3) On the top left side of the my app page, click + and then select New App.
(4) Fill in your app details in the form that appears. In the platform section, make sure that iOS is selected. Since Flutter does not support tvOS for the time being, keep this option unchecked. Click Create.
(5) Jump to your application details, and select App Information from the sidebar.
(6) In the basic information section, select the suit ID you registered in the previous step.
3. Check Xcode project settings
In this step, you need to check most of the important settings in the Xcode workspace. For more steps and descriptions, see Prepare for App Distribution.
Jump to your target settings in Xcode:
(1) In Xcode, open in the ios directory of your App Runner.xcworkspace
(2) To see your app settings, select Runner in the Xcode project navigation bar
(3) Select General tab
Next, you need to verify the most important configuration:
In the Identity section:
The name of this app will be displayed on the home screen and other places.
Your App ID registered on App Store Connect.
In the Signing section:
Automatically manage signing Do you need Xcode to automatically manage app signatures and settings. This is set by default and is true applicable to most apps.
Team: Select the team linked to your registered Apple developer account. If necessary, select Add Account…, and then update the options.
In the Development section:
Deployment Target: The minimum version of iOS that your App will support. Flutter supports iOS 8.0 and later versions. If your App contains Objective-C or Swift code that uses APIs not supported by iOS 8, please set it to the appropriate version.
The General tab of your project should look like this:
4. Update the app version number
The default initial version number of each application is 1.0.0. To update it, go to the pubspec.yaml file and update the following:
version: 1.0.0+1
The version number consists of numbers separated by three dots, such as in the example above 1.0.0. Then there are optional build numbers, such as in the example above 1, to + separate them.
Both the version number and the build number can be used --build-name and --build-number reassigned separately when Flutter is packaged .
In iOS, when build-number used as a CFBundleVersion time, build-name as CFBundleShortVersionString. To read more about iOS version control, please refer to the Core Foundation Keys provided by Apple's developer website.
5. Add application icons
When you create a new Flutter application, a default icon is created. In this step, you will replace the placeholder icon with your own icon:
(1) Review the iOS App Icon guide.
(2) In the Xcode project navigation bar, select in the Runner directory Assets.xcassetsand update the placeholder icon to the icon of your own app.
(3) flutter run Verify by executing whether your icon has been replaced.
6. Create a build archive
In this step, you will create a build archive and upload it to App Store Connect.
During the development process, you will use the debug mode to complete the build, debug and test. When you are ready to deliver your app to users through the App Store or TestFlight, you need to prepare a release build.
Perform the following steps in your application directory on the command line:
(1) Execute flutter build ios to create a release build ( flutter build point to by default --release).
(2) To ensure that Xcode refreshes the configuration of the release mode, close and reopen your Xcode. For Xcode 8.3 and later versions, this step is not necessary.
In Xcode, configure the version of the app and start building:
(1) In Xcode, open ios the Runner.xcworkspace
(2) Select Product> Scheme> Runner
（3）选择 Product > Destination > Generic iOS Device
(4) Select Runner in the Xcode project navigation bar, and then select the Runner target in the sidebar of the setting interface.
(5) In the Identity section, update the Version to be the version number visible to users that you want to publish.
(6) In the Identity section, the update Build is marked as a unique Build number for tracking on the App Store Connect. Each upload requires a separate Build number.
Finally, create a build archive and upload it to App Store Connect:
(1) Select Product> Archive to generate a build archive
(2) In the sidebar of the Xcode organization interface, select your iOS app, and then select the build archive you just generated.
(3) Click the Validate... button. If any problems are reported, record them and start a new build. You can use the same Build ID until you upload an archive.
(4) After the archive verification is successful, click Upload to App Store.... You can check your build status on the Activities tab of the application details page in App Store Connect.
When your build has passed the verification, you can publish your build to your testers through Testfligh or directly to the App Store, you will receive a letter to remind you within 30 minutes.
7. Publish your app to TestFlight
TestFlight Allow developers to publish their apps to internal or external testers. This step is optional, the following content will guide you to publish your build to TestFlight.
(1) In App Store Connect , the detail page of your application jumps to TestFlight Tab.
(2) Select Internal Testing in the sidebar.
(3) Select the build to be released to testers, and then click Save.
(4) Add emails for each internal tester. You can add additional internal users on the Users and Roles page of App Store Connect, and they will appear in the drop-down menu at the top of the page.
8. Publish your app to the App Store
When you are ready to publish your app to this world, follow the steps below to submit your app for review and publish it to the App Store.
(1) Select Pricing and Availability from the sidebar on the App Store Connect page of your app, and then complete all required information.
(2) Select the status from the sidebar. If this is the first release of this App, the status will be 1.0 Prepare for Submission, fill in all the fields that need to be filled in.
(3) Click to submit for review
Apple will remind you after their review process is over. Your app will be released according to the introduction in the Version Release section.
After you create an application, you can attract more users through Google Ads. The Google Ads platform can help you attract more users with a very high cost performance through machine learning.
(1) Create advertisements-we will help you create advertisements based on your application information. In addition, you can also add pictures and videos.
(2) Decide on the promotion budget—For a campaign whose main goal is to increase app installations, you need to set an app install bid for it, that is, the "target cost per install", and set a daily promotion expenditure budget.
(3) Select the target area-let us know which area users you want to reach.
(4) Set user actions—decide what you want users to do, such as installation, in-app operations, or target return on ad spend (ROAS).