TestFlight Beta testing - Can we have multiple versions of the same application available to different 1000 external testers

Question

I have gone through all the documentation for apple developer beta testing mentioned here:

https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/iTunesConnect_Guide/Chapters/BetaTestingTheApp.html

It says 

You can enable up to 25 users from your iTunes Connect team to be internal testers and up to 1000 users to be external testers per app.

Apple Says :

10 apps can be send for pre-release using TestFlight Beta Program.

My question is:

1) Can we have multiple versions of the same application available to different 1000 external testers.

2) This way I can add same application with different name and identifier (surely with different certificates and app Id's) to 10,000 external testers.

3) Or you can add only 1000 external testers to individual developer account.

I understand 10 groups of 1000 external testers per app have different version of app, and if new version is uploaded. This needs to be send individually for beta approval.

My major concern is get more testers for same app under External testing program.

Can someone please guide me the right answer of same. Or apple will not approve same app under external review using some mechanism where they check the same app is distributed.

Solution 1

I have test out all the probabilities for the same, but the answer in simple terms is: no, we can't have multiple versions of the same application available to different 1000 external testers. Because under iTunes Connect, only 1000 external testers can be added. These are same for one app or for multiple apps.

---

Question : This way I can add same application with different name and identifier (surely with different certificates and app Id's) to 10,000 external testers.

No. Only total of 1000 external testers can be associated with single developer account.

---

Question : Or you can add only 1000 external testers to individual developer account.

Yes, that's right.

---

The major obstacle we face under multiple version of same app is, if we have web API's interaction and push notifications functionality for app. Then we need multiple distribution certificates for sending push notifications and it's become a big hurdle. So it's not recommended at all.

Solution 2

TestFlight can now be used to distribute multiple builds of the same app.

RefLinks:

1. https://savvyapps.com/blog/using-testflight-to-distribute-multiple-versions-ios-app
2. https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/04/12/apple-updates-testflight-to-enable-testing-of-multiple-app-builds-90-day-beta-periods

This has been mentioned elsewhere on stackoverflow as well. (https://stackoverflow.com/a/46694803/1818089)

Comments

[Kiron]

I think the above mentioned is not correct. Now you can add 2000 external testers for each app. So if you need to have more testers then create a new application with different bundle id and upload it so that you can upload the application again and send to 2000 external testers again.

[Bora Sumer]

Still you can't get to choose the version to download and test in the TestFlight App though, it only lets you download the latest deployed app version.