I am a big fan of build automation. As a developer, the last thing I want to waste my time doing is compiling and distributing my software. Countless technologies are available that can play a part in automating your build process. Tools like Make, Ant, Maven, and Gradle can define the steps required to build the software. JUnit can be used for unit testing, and plugins like Findbugs and Checkstyle can be used to check code quality. Then, HockeyApp can be used to distribute apps to test users (or even end users). All of these processes can be executed automatically by a tool like Jenkins. Jenkins is an amazingly powerful tool that pulls all the above together in a nice web-interface with countless plugins available to accomplish just about any development task. So long as your project can be build using command line tools, Jenkins can build it for you. Unfortunately, there is one exception that really sticks out — iOS. Sure, you can build an iOS application using Jenkins, but you will find that you spend nearly as much time managing a failed build process as you would spend manually building and deploying the app yourself. I have dozens and dozens of tasks that I have automated with Jenkins – Android builds, JBoss applications, C apps, scripts, REST calls, and iOS builds. The only processes that ever requires my attention are the iOS builds. Why is iOS build automation so painful? Well, once you try it you realize very quickly that Apple does not intend for you to use anything but the Xcode environment for development. Switching profiles, certificates, etc require all kinds of ruby scripts and a detailed knowledge of the iOS build process. There is no simple ‘make’ command you can run to build the application. Certificates cause all kind of problems too. New developer on the team? Great – plan on the build breaking when he checks in the project with a new certificate you don’t have on the build server. New hardware to test against? Don’t plan on using any of the existing builds — they won’t work until you add the device to your profile and install new certificates. Time to pay your annual fee as an Apple developer? Be ready to install new certificates on Jenkins. Sure you can try to automate some of the certificate mayhem, but plan to enter all of your Apple developer passwords, keychain passwords, and any other password or key you can imagine into Jenkins to try to accomplish the build. Then, when it comes time to deploy to quality assurance staff or test users in your organization, plan for a whole new round of fun. Apple really doesn’t want you using anything but their TestFlight tools. I could go on, but you get the point — iOS + build automation = pain. I love Apple’s line of laptops, which are a dream for developers. I just wish their iOS platform wasn’t such a nightmare to work with.