App Center Blog
The latest news, updates and information for mobile developers using Visual Studio App Center
Latest posts
Private Preview for App Store Connect API support
App Center is introducing JSON Web Token based authorization to Apple Developer Connection. You no longer have to renew your connection every 30 days using credentials, 2FA, and App Specific Password. Additionally, you will be able to set access levels for the keys in the Apple Developer Portal. While App Center will continue supporting the session-based authorization, we encourage you to try out using App Store Connect API key. Find a host of new features and improvements in the App Store Connect API release notes for your internal development and testing. If you would like to try out App Store Connect API in...
Deprecating macOS 10.15 image in App Center Build
Microsoft-hosted Pipelines recently announced image deprecation in Azure Pipelines. Accordingly, we want to update App Center customers on the upcoming change in our build image support. If you are building iOS or Xamarin apps using  , or or below versions, you will be impacted by this change. We recommend you update your build configuration to another Xcode or Xamarin version prior to October 2022. After this date, any build running on images will be re-routed to . Please reach out to support if you have any questions. We would be more than happy to assist you. Resources
Public Preview for App Center Build Export
App Center Build makes it easy for mobile developers to get started with building their apps - in many cases with just a few clicks. But this focus on simplicity also means that customers who need more complex builds end up outgrowing App Center Build and have a hard time figuring out where to go next. Whereas there are other tools in the broad Microsoft ecosystem to achieve that, there was no easy way to export App Center Build configurations and migrate them over to another tool. We are excited to introduce a new capability to migrate your existing App Center Build configurations over to Azure Pipelines. Now...
App Center Analytics & Diagnostics Data Retention
Mobile developers use App Center Analytics to gain insights into their applications’ users and their usage and use App Center Diagnostics to monitor their applications’ health and dig into unexpected failures. We are committed to keeping these services healthy and reliable, and as part of that we are making some changes to our data retention policies. Today, Analytics and Diagnostics data is retained for 90 days by default, with very few caps on the volume of data generated per application. This has led to unsustainably high data volumes across these two services. Today we are announcing a scaling back of the...
Deprecating macOS 10.14 image in App Center Build
Microsoft-hosted Pipelines recently announced image deprecation in Azure Pipelines. Accordingly, we want to update App Center customers on the upcoming change in our build image support. If you are building iOS or Xamarin apps using , , or or below versions, you will be impacted by this change. We recommend you update your build configuration to another Xcode or Xamarin version prior to December 2021. After this date, any build running on images will be re-routed to . Please reach out to support if you have any questions. We would be more than happy to assist you. Resources macOS-10.14 Image c...
Announcing Apache Cordova Retirement in App Center
Since App Center launched in 2017, we’ve added support for 16 platforms and frameworks. One of the first was Apache Cordova, a cross-platform framework that wraps JavaScript apps in a native container. Along with React Native, it was one of two frameworks to support CodePush and exactly what the community needed as many developers transitioned their skills from web to mobile apps. Since then, the needs of the community have changed just as Cordova’s popularity has waned. Today calls from the Cordova SDK account for less than 1% of App Center’s service. Consequently, after a 6 month grace period, App Center wil...
Run Tests on Android and iOS Beta Versions
We understand the pain and struggle to address unexpected issues before the next release of the major OS version. As exciting as it is to try new features in advance, the struggle to identify compatibility issues over a night is real. We heard your feedback, and now we are super excited to announce beta version support in App Center Test service. App Center Test Supports Beta Versions 🎉 Starting from today, App Center offers you a way to try pre-release versions of Android and iOS prior to the final release. You can try beta versions with your application in the physical devices, and test drive new features wi...
Deprecating Xcode version 11.0, 11.1, and 11.4 in App Center
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This September, Visual Studio App Center delivered build support for Xcode 11.7, 12.0, and 12.2 beta. In the process of expanding our Xcode support, we also investigated how many customers were using older versions. We discovered that our community currently builds between 2-4% of apps using Xcode 11.0,11.1 or 11.4. Therefore, we have decided to focus on supporting most commonly used Xcode versions. Effective November 5, 2020, we are ending support for Xcode versions 11.0, 11.1, and 11.4.We recommend you update your build configuration to another Xcode version prior to November 5, 2020. After this date, any bui...
Migrating off App Center Push
Retiring App Center Push Earlier this year, Microsoft announced the retirement of the preview MBaaS services in Visual Studio App Center, which include Auth, Data, and Push services. Today we’re providing an update on the App Center Push retirement timeline and details to help you migrate to Azure Notifications Hubs. We will retire App Center Push on February 15th, 2021 to give you sufficient time to migrate. We’re actively working on bringing the experience of App Center Push to Azure Notification Hubs as you migrate your apps. We have also released GA version of SDKs with the features below. Migrating to A...