Automating iOS app releases with Runway

One of the main gripes of being an iOS developer, is having to use App Store Connect.

Don’t get me wrong, it provides lot of opportunities, great functionalities and allow us indie developers to distribute our creations to end users.

But… let’s say… it could be improved 😬.

What’s wrong with App Store Connect?

That spinning circle..

Nothing is intrinsically wrong, but if you’ve ever tried submitting apps, you’ll know it can be slow and painful. A few main things come to mind:

You need to login.. always!
That small checkbox that says “Remember me”? Yes that’s a lie!

It’s slow and.. breaks
It’s now almost a joke in the developer community. Apple web services and products are clumsy… That loading circle.. oh.. you will see it sooo much. And sometimes it never stops. Random errors appear, or pages just stop loading.

And did I tell you that it’s.. slooooowwww… 😫

So.. many.. clicks.. pages.. loading..
You know when you open a page, after a good 2–4 seconds of waiting, and you think, “oh, finally I can work”, then you proceed to click an item and… loading again..

Even elements inside the loading page, needs to load again.
Do you want to modify metadata for a language? Loading..
Do you want to change screenshots? Loading..
Do you want to change prices? Loading.. Loading.. Loading..

I will stop here but these are just small examples of how something required to deliver your product can hamper your productivity and make you waste lot of time.

Enter Runway

I didn’t know about Runway until one of my coworkers brought it to my attention.

Runway is a service that allows you to orchestrate your mobile app releases, connecting with multiple services, including…. App Store Connect!