Build an iOS app without Mac ownership?

Question

Please correct me if you are mistaken.

I'm new to mobile device development, and I would like to develop an app to ship to the Apple Store.

But I am very discouraged by the prices of macs, then I develop the application in mind.

Say that I know exactly what I want and how to encode it.

If I were to create a developer account and pay the fee - then borrow my mac friends, write the code and send my code to apple. Is that all I need for a Mac? And then I can access all the statistics, etc. Via iTunes on my Windows PC?

Can anyone tell me that I'm crazy?

Answer 1

Let me tell you step by step a few years ago. I was in the same situation.

So we have two phases

• Application development for iPhone / iPad (iOS).
• Application development for iPhone / iPad (iOS) and publication in the iTunes store.

1. Application development for iPhone / iPad (iOS)

So, if you just want to develop applications for iOS, you don’t want to pay anything,

You just need a Mac + Xcode IDE

• Get Mac Mini or Mac Machine
• Create Apple Developer Account for Free
• After registering the developer account, you can download the Xdode IDE.dmg file
• What all.

Now you just install Xcode and start developing iOS applications and test / debug using Simulator ..

2. Developing applications for iPhone / iPad (iOS) and publishing in the iTunes Store

to publish your application on the iTunes store you need to pay (for example, $ 99 per year).

So, for a full install of iOS Development you need

• Get Mac Mini or Mac Machine
• Create Apple Developer Account for Free
• After registering the developer account, you can download the Xdode IDE.dmg file
• pay $ 99 for publishing apps on iTunes
• Create your development / distribution certificates on your Apple account.
• Download the entire certificate on a Mac and install it in Xcode using the Keychain tool.
• Get at least one iOS device
• Register your device with your Apple account.
• Now you can develop an iOS application, test on a real device, and publish to the iTunes Store

Answer 2

You can use Intel XDK so you can develop and publish an iOS app without mac.

Click here for details.

Answer 3

There are some cloud solutions like macincloud (not free)

Answer 4

Short answer: theoretically YES, but it should be VERY GOOD your friend, but again, you may prefer to buy the used mac-mini

Long answer: you will need this Mac for a very long time, depending on your application requirements, your development skills and your luck with Apple. eg:

• You may need several days to configure Xcode and the necessary SDKs and libraries.
• It may take some time to get this developer account, sometimes you can wait too much even to check your request.
• When you submit your application for the first time, you will have to wait some time, maybe up to several weeks or even months, to check your application.
• Each time your application is rejected, you will need to find and fix your problems (without much help from Apple, others that point to the rule of the rule that you violated), then reapply the application to check and wait again.
• Every time you try to apply a patch for your already deployed application, you will need to check your application, and there is a chance that your previously legitimate application now violates the new manual, so you reapply and wait

So, in my experience, developing an iOS application is a very lengthy process, not even considering the actual time it took to develop the code. Can you take a Mac for a long time?

Answer 5

You can use Phonegap (Cordova) to develop iOS apps without a Mac, but you still need a Mac to ship your application to the App Store. We have developed a cloud-based application that can also publish your application without a Mac https://www.wenz.io/ApplicationLoader . We are currently in beta and you can use the service for free.

Sincerely, Steffen Wentz

(I am the creator of the site)

Answer 6

On Windows, you can use a Mac in a virtual machine (this probably also works on Linux, but I haven't tested it). A virtual machine is basically a program that you run on your computer that allows you to run one OS in a window inside another. Ensure that there is 60 GB of free space on the hard disk. The virtual hard drive you download takes 10GB initially, but when you have installed all the necessary programs for developing applications for iOS, its size can easily increase to 50 GB (I recommend leaving a few GBs margin just in case).

Below are detailed instructions for installing a Mac virtual machine on Windows:

• Install VirtualBox .

• You need to enable virtualization in the BIOS. To open the BIOS in Windows 10, you need to start by holding down the Shift key by clicking the Shut Down button in the Start menu:

  

  Then your computer will shut down. When you start it again, hold down the F2 key and do not release it until you are in the BIOS. In older versions of Windows, this is the same thing, except that when you turn off the computer you do not need to hold down the Shift key . On some computers, you may need to hold down another key than F2 .

• Now that you are in the BIOS, you need to enable virtualization. Which setting you need to change depends on which computer you are using. This can vary even between two computers with the same version of Windows. On my computer, you need to install Intel Virtual Technology on the Configuration tab on Enabled . On other computers, it can be, for example, Security -> Virtualization or in Advanced -> CPU Setup . If you cannot find any of these options, find Google enable virtualization (the kind of computer you have) . Do not change anything in the BIOS as if it were by accident, because otherwise it can cause problems on your computer. When you turn on virtualization, save the changes and exit the BIOS. This is usually done on the Exit tab.

• Download this file (I don’t have a connection with the person who downloaded this file, but I downloaded and used it, so I’m sure that there are no viruses). If the link is broken, send a comment to let me know and I will try to upload the file somewhere else. This RAR contains a VDMK file that will act as the hard drive for the Mac virtual machine. Extract this VDMK file. If disk space is a problem for you, once you have extracted the VDMK file, you can delete the RAR file and therefore save 7 GB.

• Open the VirtualBox that you installed in step 1. On the toolbar, click the Create button. Then select a name for your virtual machine (the name does not matter, I called it "Mac"). In Type, select Mac OS X, and in Version select Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan (64 bit).

  

• Select the amount of memory that your virtual machine can use. Try to balance the amount, because too little memory will result in poor virtual machine performance, and too much memory will cause your host system (Windows) to run out of memory, which will cause the virtual machine and / or other programs to re running on windows to crash. On a computer with 4 GB of available memory, 2 GB was a good amount. Do not worry, if you choose a bad amount, you can change it whenever you want (except when the virtual machine is running).

• In the hard drive step, select "Use an existing virtual hard disk file" and click the small folder icon to the right of the list. This will open a viewport. Select the VDMK file that you downloaded and extracted in step 4.

  

  When you are done with this, click Create.

• Select a virtual machine in the list to the left of the window and click the "Settings" button on the toolbar. In the system → Processor, select 2 CPUs. If you later understand that in step 6 you selected the amount of memory that is causing the problems, you can change it in System → Motherboard. When you finish changing the settings, click OK.

• Open a command prompt ( C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe ). Run the following commands there, replacing "Your VM Name" with what you called your virtual machine in step 5 (for example, "Mac" ) (keep the quotes):

   cd "C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\" VBoxManage.exe modifyvm "Your VM Name" --cpuidset 00000001 000106e5 00100800 0098e3fd bfebfbff VBoxManage setextradata "Your VM Name" "VBoxInternal/Devices/efi/0/Config/DmiSystemProduct" "iMac11,3" VBoxManage setextradata "Your VM Name" "VBoxInternal/Devices/efi/0/Config/DmiSystemVersion" "1.0" VBoxManage setextradata "Your VM Name" "VBoxInternal/Devices/efi/0/Config/DmiBoardProduct" "Iloveapple" VBoxManage setextradata "Your VM Name" "VBoxInternal/Devices/smc/0/Config/DeviceKey" "ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc" VBoxManage setextradata "Your VM Name" "VBoxInternal/Devices/smc/0/Config/GetKeyFromRealSMC" 1 

• Now you are ready to use the virtual machine. In VirtualBox, click the "Start" button and follow the installation instructions for Mac. Once you have installed the Mac on the virtual machine, you can develop the iOS app as if you had a real Mac.

Note. If you want to save space on your hard drive, you can compress the VDMK file extracted in step 4 and use it in step 7. To do this, right-click it, select "Properties", click "Advanced" ... in the lower right corner and check the box "Compress content to save disk space." This will cause this very large file to take up less disk space without doing anything worse. I did this and it reduced the disk size of the VDMK file from 50 to 40 GB without data loss.

Answer 7

Updated from 09/2017

You can create an iOS application (and Android at the same time) using React Native + Expo without owning a poppy. You can also run the iOS application in the iOS Expo application when it is developed. (You can even publish it for other people to access, but it will only work in the Expo app). Here is a page from Expo on how to create a standalone application.

Steps from this page:

One : install exp by running npm install -g exp

Two : configure app.json (somewhere along these lines):

 { "expo": { "name": "Your App Name", "icon": "./path/to/your/app-icon.png", "version": "1.0.0", "slug": "your-app-slug", "sdkVersion": "17.0.0", "ios": { "bundleIdentifier": "com.yourcompany.yourappname" }, "android": { "package": "com.yourcompany.yourappname" } } } 

Three : run exp packer with exp start

Four : run exp build:android or exp build:ios .

You will be asked to enter some data. For android you can choose 1) Let Expo handle the process! if you don’t have a keystore (or if you don’t know what it is). For iOS, you will need to enter Apple developer credentials. Then you can get a vendor distribution certificate or let it process it.

Five : from time to time you will need to come back and run the exp build:status command to check if your build has been completed. Upon completion, you will be provided with a direct link to the .apk or .ipa .

The only drawback of this approach is that it will not be as native as writing an iOS application in Swift, and you will have to put up with a parade of problems that you may encounter when developing with weakly typed js, npm and these are problems depending on a specific version -other libraries and other materials.

Answer 8

You can use Smartface to develop your application using javascript and deploy it directly to stores without a Mac. What they say is below.

With Cloud Build, the Smartface module eliminates all the complexity of application deployment. You don’t have to worry about how to manage code signing certificates and have a Mac to sign your applications. Smartface Cloud can store all your iOS certificates and Android keystores in one place, and signing and building is completely in the cloud. No matter which operating system you use, you can get binaries ready for storage (or corporate distributions). Smartface frees you from blocking to the Mac and allows you to use your favorite operating system for development.

https://www.smartface.io/smartface/

Answer 9

Also, if you want to save money, you should not buy a Mac. There are other ways to do this:

1.) You can use almost any OS to run the latest version of MacOS in a virtual machine (see YouTube). I have been using this method for a really long time without any problems with windows with VMWare.

2.) Hackintosh. Install MacOS on your computer. You should have compatible components, but if you have, this is the best way because you are eliminating delays in the VM ... I am using this at this time. Fine. On my laptop, but please don’t tell Apple about it because it’s practically illegal.

3.) If you are creating simple applications with a minimal user interface, you can use Theos . Also with Theos you can create cydia settings. Only one problem: codeign. If you want to publish the app on the App Store, you still need to have MacOS, but if you want to make the app at home, you can use CydiaImpactor to sign apps with an Apple ID.

I used all of these methods and everything works. In my opinion, VM is the best solution if you do not want to spend a lot of time installing Hackintosh.

Answer 10

XAMARIN CROSS Platform

You can use Xamarin, your cross platform with visual studio IDE and integrate xamarin into it. This is a simple investment in xamarin and building ios applications using C # code.