Bitrise, or how to publish iOS apps without a Mac!

A big thank you to Jérôme from Prototyper for introducing me to this tool!

Bitrise is a CI/CD (Continuous Integration and Delivery) platform specialized in mobile that could, you too, save your life.

Yes I'm exaggerating a bit, but not that much... and by the way I'd like to point out that this article is not sponsored!

The principle

The platform will let you test, compile, sign and package your code for Android or iOS, in just a few clicks.

Bitrise gives you the ability to connect a Git repository directly to fetch your code, whether it's on GitHub, BitBucket or even GitLab.

Once your application is connected, you're going to define the Workflow you want for your application, for example: git clone -> test -> build -> sign -> archive -> export.

But above all you can choose the version of MacOS and Xcode to use to compile your application, and for those working with iOS, you know how much of a game changer that is!

Why use it?

I'd say there are three main reasons to use a platform like Bitrise...

Automating your deployments

For an agency that develops mobile apps very regularly, being able to automate its tests, builds and even deployments saves time and brings peace of mind.

The ability to listen for commits on a particular branch to automatically trigger the workflow makes code management by the team simpler.

Working around an outdated Mac

This is the context in which I personally used it. After developing my application on a mid-2011 MacBook, Apple kindly informed me that I needed to update everything or else I wouldn't be able to publish my application.

Problem: This MacBook version was no longer eligible for updates, so I had to go through Bitrise to publish my application!

Freeing yourself from MacOS

More and more developers are turning to tools like React-Native to create native applications based on a single Javascript code base.

Until now, it was mandatory to have access to a Mac in order to compile and sign these applications before deploying them, but all that is over, you can now develop AND deploy your applications from Linux or Windows!

The icing on the cake

The platform has a free usage plan that will surely be enough for your use case since you can run up to 200 builds per month!

For those interested, here's the link to the platform: https://bitrise.io