News a large database of prototype iOS applications (2010-2015) has been rediscovered, includes several unreleased games

[Krvavi Abadas]

if you own an iPhone or iPad, you might be familar with the "TestFlight" application. which allows developers to send over prototype builds of apps to testers.

however, Apple didn't always own it. the company was originally founded in 2010 as an entirely standalone entity. with apps instead being hosted on their own servers.
they were acquired by Burstly back in 2012, and Apple in turn bought Burstly in 2014.

as a result of this. Testflight was fully integrated into Apple's ecosystem & servers. with the original site getting shut down on February 26th, 2015.

even at the time. people recognized the significance of the content possibly getting wiped off the internet, and a group known as "Archive Team" went out of their way to back up the entire site. including thousands of apps. while developers did have the option to delete builds after the testing period.....

it seems a large chunk of them never bothered, ensuring their safety.

despite the historical significance of some of the rescued content. the project stayed completely obscure outside of the Archive Team. until recently.
my best guess as to the newfound interest is likely just down to the fact a lot of kids who grew up playing these classic smartphone games are much older now, and have an interest in seeing the development process behind them.
one of the groups rallying around and researching the archive is suggesting the collection should be known as the "Teraleak" (in reference to the Gigaleak, the full archive of the site actually does total to 1.3TB) though i feel like this isn't necessary.

some notable content rescued includes....

• an unreleased port of the popular Club Penguin mini-game "Card-Jitsu"
• an early 2012 build of Sonic Dash
• a "vertical slice" of what would later become Tony Hawk's Shred Session, under the name "Tony Hawk Mobile".
• the never released "hatchery" update for Angry Birds, including features like being able to create your own bird.
• a prototype of Deus Ex: The Fall under the early name of "Deus Ex: Icarus Rising", including assets from the unreleased New York and Australia levels (plus Slippy Toad from Star Fox?)

this is just a tiny sliver of the content discovered so far, the sheer amount of files means it'll take quite a few months before everything is fully documented.

 

[Krvavi Abadas]

i keep forgetting to keep this thread updated, sorry. :/

regardless, here's a few notable things i found in the database. also check out the early builds of Kero Blaster, if you didn't see that thread yet.




and discoveries other people made.....

• TOSE was making some sort of Plants vs Zombies spin-off title (they previously developed the DS port of the original) either mahjong or a card game. it's one of the builds that were already removed, but you can still see the icons on those.
• another title that only exists as an icon is "Tempest Shift", a mobile spin-off of the classic Atari arcade game.
• CAPCOM was developing a card game based off their various fighting games called "Fighters of Capcom". the trademark for it was filed in 2012. but was eventually abandoned.
• You Don't Know Jack was intended to get a mobile spin-off combining the various "Jack Attack" levels into a single collection.
• multiple prototypes of the Namco mobile game "Rocket Fox", a few of which use the early title of "Lift Off!"
• the developer of Nightsky created an unusual test app codenamed "hotel", consisting entirely of a tower of various colored squares, with another line sliding across the bottom of the screen that you can drag onto the tower.

 

[Krvavi Abadas]

the original Archive Team WARCs are now completely gone with a note about the C&D, and the urls for the old Testflight site are blacklisted on the Wayback Machine.

definitely unfortunate, and doesn't really seem like something Apple should have had control over. since none of their apps were on it.
the general response from devs featured in the collection was also fairly approving, having no issue with people sharing the early builds.


the Internet Archive is currently wrapped in a much larger legal battle over the entire site, so they don't really have the resources to deal with this alongside it.

 

[robertman2]

the original Archive Team WARCs are now completely gone with a note about the C&D, and the urls for the old Testflight site are blacklisted on the Wayback Machine.

definitely unfortunate, and doesn't really seem like something Apple should have had control over. since none of their apps were on it.
the general response from devs featured in the collection was also fairly approving, having no issue with people sharing the early builds.


the Internet Archive is currently wrapped in a much larger legal battle over the entire site, so they don't really have the resources to deal with this alongside it.

I assume people backed up the files elsewhere?