[Eclyps]

My company manages just a couple apps for iOS. They aren't updated too frequently, maybe 3ish times per year. Few things fill me with dread more than trying to release a new iOS app after a certificate has expired. As others have mentioned, the process around provisioning profiles, certificates, managing them within Xcode, etc, is extremely complicated, and the 2-5 day review period makes things even more stressful because there's no easy way to just upload a fix when something goes wrong (like device tokens suddenly stop generating in production). Since we push updates so infrequently, every other push requires updated certificates and the large time gaps make it easy to forget how much of a pain it is until you're trying to do it.

Some things that I am thankful for:

- TestFlight. It's a pain that I have to have the app approved before I can send the beta out to my internal users. Seems like internal should let internal users update to a beta version without review (while external would still require a review). At least it lets us test with our production certificates eventually. It's still a pain if something is discovered and it requires a rebuild and a new review.

- Emergency Review Requests. I've had to submit 3 of these over the past several years, and Apple has always initiated my within 2 hours. I really appreciate this, and I'm glad that people haven't abused it so much that they've scrapped it.

[saurik]

Is there a service or GUI tool which, if it magically existed and understood all of these steps and so was only limited by the underlying cryptography involved, would noticeably mitigate or even dissipate your "dread"?

[Eclyps]

There's https://fastlane.tools, but I haven't looked into it a ton. It seems to require a big investment to get things rolling, but probably solves a lot of these problems after that. I'll have to revisit it at some point...

[saurik]

I am more trying to ask the question "what is the minimal modification to your current, depressing workflow that would have made your life easier: what is the magic artifact weapon you wish you had in your arsenal to cut through your pain points (or even just, what is your single largest obstacle in the middle of the battle, when boiled down to a single moment where a deux ex machina would have been useful)", as opposed to "would you be willing to opt into a totally different lifestyle of peace and love, it only requires that you disavow all of your current earthly possessions and relationships".