Why I use Continuous Integration for my iOS App

All this year, I’ve been using BitRise for iHog. Let me tell you, this has been amazing. Here are my top 3 reasons why I like continuous integration, CI. This can be done with generally any CI ⁠tool, but I used BitRise because I had previously heard about them on podcasts and have seen their ads. They are also mobile focused, which gave me a really good feeling choosing them. ⁠

Incrementing build numbers⁠

I can’t be the only iOS developer that has forgotten to change the build number to push a build to TestFlight. With CI, I will never forget again. I was able to configure a step in the workflow to change the build number in the Xcode project to match Bitrise’s build number. This means that the build number will always be more than the one before it.

⁠ I also didn’t have to build the step myself. Bitrise had it already to go as a step where I just had to pass it the version number.

Testing in the “cloud”

Every time I push code to the GitHub repo, the tests run. This makes sure that I’m testing often, even if I don’t have time to test before I have to do the next thing. I can either go back and check my BitRise dashboard or just look at the Discord message, which I’ll discuss next.

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Post to Discord⁠

Upon a successful or a failed build, BitRise will use a webhook to make a Post on the status of the build. This is useful for me and my beta users so they know to be on the look out for a new update soon.

Have you tried Bitrise or any other kind of continuous integration whether for mobile dev or web dev?⁠