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Get Started with tvOS

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Important

Visual Studio App Center is scheduled for retirement on March 31, 2025. While you can continue to use Visual Studio App Center until it is fully retired, there are several recommended alternatives that you may consider migrating to.

Learn more about support timelines and alternatives.

The App Center SDK uses a modular architecture so you can use any or all of the services.

Let's get started with setting up App Center tvOS SDK in your app to use App Center Analytics and App Center Crashes.

1. Prerequisites

The following requirements must be met to use App Center SDK:

  • Your tvOS is set up in Xcode 13 or later on tvOS version 11 or later.
  • You aren't using any other library that provides Crash Reporting functionality.

2. Create your app in the App Center Portal to obtain the App Secret

If you've already created your app in the App Center portal, you can skip this step.

  1. Head over to appcenter.ms.
  2. Sign up or log in and hit the blue button on the top-right corner of the portal that says Add new and select Add new app from the dropdown menu.
  3. Enter a name and an optional description for your app.
  4. Select tvOS as the OS and Objective-C/Swift as a platform.
  5. Hit the button at the bottom right that says Add new app.

Once you've created an app, you can obtain its App Secret on the Settings page on the App Center Portal. At the top right-hand corner of the Settings page, click on the triple vertical dots and select Copy app secret to get your App Secret.

3. Add the App Center SDK modules

The App Center SDK for tvOS can be integrated into your app via Cocoapods, Carthage, Swift Package Manager or by manually adding the binaries to your project.

Note

In the 4.0.0 version of App Center breaking changes were introduced. Follow the Migrate to App Center SDK 4.0.0 and higher section to migrate App Center from previous versions.

3.1 Integration via Cocoapods

  1. Add the following dependencies to your podfile to include App Center Analytics and App Center Crashes into your app. This pulls in the following frameworks: AppCenter, AppCenterAnalytics, and AppCenterCrashes. Instead, you can specify which services you want to use in your app. Each service has its own subspec and they all rely on AppCenter. It will get pulled in automatically.

     # Use the following line to use App Center Analytics and Crashes.
 pod 'AppCenter'

 # Use the following lines if you want to specify which service you want to use.
 pod 'AppCenter/Analytics'
 pod 'AppCenter/Crashes'

  2. Run pod install to install your newly defined pod and open the project's .xcworkspace.

Now that you've integrated the frameworks in your application, it's time to start the SDK and make use of the App Center services.

3.2 Integration via Carthage

Below are the steps on how to integrate the App Center SDK in your Xcode project using Carthage version 0.30 or higher, a decentralized dependency manager that builds your dependencies and provides you with binary frameworks.

  1. Add the following dependencies to your Cartfile to include App Center Analytics and App Center Crashes into your app.

    # Use the following line to get the latest version of App Center
github "microsoft/appcenter-sdk-apple"

    # Use the following line to get the specific version of App Center
github "microsoft/appcenter-sdk-apple" ~> X.X.X

  2. Run carthage update --platform tvOS. This fetches dependencies into a Carthage/Checkouts folder, and then builds each framework.

  3. Open your application target's General settings tab. Drag and drop AppCenter.framework, AppCenterAnalytics.framework, and AppCenterCrashes.framework files from the Carthage/Build/tvOS folder into Xcode's Project Navigator. The AppCenter.framework is required to start the SDK. If it isn't added to the project, the other modules won't work and your app won't compile.

  4. A dialog will appear, make sure your app target is checked. Then click Finish.

    Note

    If you use carthage copy-frameworks in your Build Phase you shouldn't add the App Center SDKs there as they're shipped as static frameworks.

Now that you've integrated the frameworks in your application, it's time to start the SDK and make use of the App Center services.

3.3 Integration via Swift Package Manager

  1. From the Xcode menu click File > Swift Packages > Add Package Dependency.
  2. In the dialog that appears, enter the repository URL: https://github.com/microsoft/appcenter-sdk-apple.git.
  3. In Version, select Up to Next Major and take the default option.
  4. Choose the modules you need in the Package Product column.

Now that you've integrated the frameworks in your application, it's time to start the SDK and make use of the App Center services.

Note

If you're integrating App Center via SwiftPM and want to use it in your app's extension target as well, make sure that you provide DISABLE_DIAMOND_PROBLEM_DIAGNOSTIC=YES in your configuration. This is necessary to avoid SwiftPM limitations in linking a module to multiple targets.

3.4 Integration by copying the binaries into your project

Below are the steps on how to integrate the compiled binaries in your Xcode project to set up App Center Analytics and App Center Crashes for your tvOS app.

Note

App Center SDK supports the use of XCframework. If you want to integrate XCframeworks into your project, download the AppCenter-SDK-Apple-XCFramework.zip from the releases page and unzip it. Resulting folder contents aren't platform-specific, instead it contains XCframeworks for each module. They can be integrated the same way as usual frameworks, as described below.

  1. Download the App Center SDK frameworks provided as a zip file.

  2. Unzip the file and you'll see a folder called AppCenter-SDK-Apple that contains different frameworks for each App Center service on each platform folder. The framework called AppCenter is required in the project as it contains code that's shared between the different modules.

  3. [Optional] Create a subdirectory for 3rd-party libraries.

    • As a best practice, 3rd-party libraries are usually inside a subdirectory (it is often called Vendor), so if you don't have your project organized with a subdirectory for libraries, create a Vendor subdirectory now.
    • Create a group called Vendor inside your Xcode project to mimic your file structure on disk.

  4. Open the unziped AppCenter-SDK-Apple folder in Finder and copy the folder into your project's folder at the location where you want it. The folder contains frameworks in subfolders for other platforms that App Center SDK supports, so you might need to delete subfolders that you don't need.

  5. Add the SDK frameworks to the project in Xcode:

    • Make sure the Project Navigator is visible (⌘+1).
    • Now drag and drop AppCenter.framework, AppCenterAnalytics.framework, and AppCenterCrashes.framework from the Finder (the ones inside the Vendor folder) into Xcode's Project Navigator. AppCenter.framework is required to start the SDK, make sure it's added to your project, otherwise the other modules won't work and your app won't compile.
    • A dialog will appear, make sure your app target is checked. Then click Finish.

Note

The SDK binary isn't packaged following the tvOS framework convention. The reason is that the App Center SDK for tvOS isn't a conventional framework but a static one. You must link it as a static framework: make sure that you're not embedding the binaries, and don't include them in the "copy bundle resources" build phase.

Now that you've integrated the frameworks in your application, it's time to start the SDK and make use of the App Center services.

4. Start the SDK

To use App Center, you must opt in to the module(s) that you want to use. By default no modules are started and you must explicitly call each of them when starting the SDK.

4.1 Add the import statements

Open the project's AppDelegate file and add the following import statements:

@import AppCenter;
@import AppCenterAnalytics;
@import AppCenterCrashes;

import AppCenter
import AppCenterAnalytics
import AppCenterCrashes

4.2 Add the start:withServices: method

Insert the following line in the app's didFinishLaunchingWithOptions delegate method:

[MSACAppCenter start:@"{Your App Secret}" withServices:@[[MSACAnalytics class], [MSACCrashes class]]];

AppCenter.start(withAppSecret: "{Your App Secret}", services: [Analytics.self, Crashes.self])

Warning

It's not recommended to embed your App Secret in source code.

If you need to start App Center services separately, you should:

  1. Configure or start it with the App Secret.
  2. If the code can be called multiple times, check if the App Center is already configured.
  3. Start the required service(s) without the App Secret.
[MSACAppCenter configureWithAppSecret:@"{Your App Secret}"];
if ([MSACAppCenter isConfigured]) {
   [MSACAppCenter startService:[MSACAnalytics class]];
   [MSACAppCenter startService:[MSACCrashes class]];
}

AppCenter.configure(withAppSecret: "{Your App Secret}")
if AppCenter.isConfigured {
    AppCenter.startService(Analytics.self)
    AppCenter.startService(Crashes.self)
}

4.3 Replace the placeholder with your App Secret

Make sure to replace {Your App Secret} text with the actual value for your application. The App Secret can be found on the Getting Started page or Settings page on the App Center portal.

The Getting Started page contains the above code sample with your App Secret in it, you can copy-paste the whole sample.

The example above shows how to use the start:withServices (start(withAppSecret:services:) for Swift) method and include both App Center Analytics and App Center Crashes.

If you don't want to use one of the two services, remove the corresponding parameter from the method call above.

Unless you specify each module as a parameter in the start method, you can't use that App Center service. Also, the start:withServices (start(withAppSecret:services:) for Swift) API can be used only once in the lifecycle of your app – all other calls will log a warning to the console and only the modules included in the first call will be available.

For example - If you want to onboard to App Center Analytics, you should modify the start:withServices (start(withAppSecret:services:) for Swift) API call as follows:

[MSACAppCenter start:@"{Your App Secret}" withServices:@[[MSACAnalytics class]]];

AppCenter.start(withAppSecret: "{Your App Secret}", services: [Analytics.self])

Great, you're all set to visualize Analytics and Crashes data on the portal that the SDK collects automatically.

Look at the documentation for App Center Analytics and App Center Crashes to learn how to customize and use more advanced functionalities of both services.