Apple fixes frustrating TestFlight app regression that search feature update added

Back in July, Apple updated its TestFlight app with a basic search feature. While you might think this simple update would be universally welcomed, the same TestFlight app introduced a pretty frustrating bug for a lot of users. Personally, I wasn’t affected by the bug in a way that I noticed. For this reason, I thought the TestFlight update was a simple but significant step forward. Sometimes a small change can make a big impact. That’s especially true for Apple’s latest TestFlight update for users with a lot of pre-release software. Apple just updated TestFlight for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and more. The new version, 4.3, introduces “a search field to quickly find apps.” In retrospect, I did notice something odd that I flagged at the end of the post (but got backwards in my assessment): The update also surfaced more apps in the “previously tested” category, so maybe the usual bug fix and performance improvements may relate to that. I missed that this was actually the bug, I think, because I left several years of app TestFlights to “merge” my separate iCloud and App Store Apple accounts last year. Inconvenient requirement, but worth it for me. Anyway, the TestFlight app bug didn’t go unnoticed by John Vorhees at MacStories: So, you can imagine my excitement when I read a post by Zac Hall at 9to5Mac that a search field had been added to TestFlight. “Finally,” I thought to myself. I stopped what I was doing and updated the app immediately. […] Unfortunately, this story comes with one very big “but.” Previously, TestFlight betas were listed in reverse chronological order, which I liked. […] Well, those expired betas are now scattered among the active TestFlight betas in an alphabetical list and it seems that the expired beta list has been expanded to include every single beta I’ve ever been a part of. I did a rough count and for me that’s nearly 800 app listings. As you can imagine, the active betas in that list are few and far between. Search helps, but scrolling is no longer an option. Then in August, John Gruber wrote an essay on Daring Fireball about the TestFlight update and bug: I didn’t complain about this when the sort order changed last month because I figured it was an oopsie — that alphabetical order was supposed to kick in only when displaying search results, not by default. But here we are a month later and the presentation of apps in TestFlight makes me a little irritated every day. Last night, more than a month after the bug was introduced (and flagged by Vorhees), Apple has updated TestFlight for the first time. While the release notes only point to bug fixes, the update does indeed fix the bug in question. TestFlight version 4.3.1 is the fix for those experiencing the regression. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.