Send your app to testers without leaving Bitrise or edit metadata and deploy straight to Google Play or the App Store with a single click.
Starting today, everyone on Bitrise can access and use Bitrise Ship, an evolution of our popular Deploy to Bitrise step and the first step (pun intended) in bringing you a full fledged mobile app deployment platform integrated into Bitrise. We wouldn't have gotten here without the help of numerous developers that joined the closed beta earlier this year, so a massive thank-you is in place there: Thanks!
On to the actual release:
The version of Ship we launched today already gives you complete control over your app’s distribution, its version history, and all the important metadata in a single place. Over the coming months, with your help, we'll iterate and improve on Ship continuously: We already have a big V2 version planned soon™.
Deployment through Ship includes oft requested improvements to the Deploy to Bitrise experience, including automatic re-signing and storage of previous versions. From Ship, you'll easily edit the app’s metadata, add marketing copy and edit screenshots on the spot. Ship is part of Bitrise.io, but is accessible through a separate UI making it the ideal place to point marketing folks, product managers and other less-technically inclined people as long as you've added them to your app on Bitrise.
Other things you can do today using Ship:
- View all the previous build versions of your app;
- View and edit all the details of a given build version (description, screenshots, and the most important parameters, such as the app size or the supported device types);
- Send your app directly to testers using a link to the app's public install page;
- Deploy a given build version to App Store Connect and/or the Google Play Console, once you set up publishing;
- Switch between platforms on the Version History page in case you're building a cross platform app.
Getting started with Ship
When you run a workflow that features a Deploy to Bitrise.io step of version 1.9.0 or higher, Ship will automatically be provisioned for the builds generated by that workflow as of today. In case of an iOS build, your Xcode Archive & Export for iOS step must be version 2.6.0 or newer.
You access Ship by clicking on the 'Ship Add-on' button on the build page:
Or, by clicking the 'Go to Add-on' button in the Add-ons tab on an app page.
To find out exactly what you can do when you get there (and how), visit the Ship guide in our Devcenter.
And now, we ship 🛳
Don't worry: Ship's launch does not mean that popular integrations like those with AppCenter or Firebase App Distribution are going anywhere: Ship and similar future features are meant to give you an easy, tightly integrated alternative to some of the scattered services and tools you're using, but you can always connect Bitrise to whatever services you use in your mobile DevOps processes.
Feel free to leave feedback or feature requests on our discuss, public Slack or find Bitrise on Twitter.
Happy building! 🚀
