Starting iPhone app development in Linux? [closed]

Question

I've heard that you need to get a Mac if you want to develop iPhone apps. Is this true?

Is it possible to develop iPhone apps using Linux? If yes, what do I need and where do I download the necessary tools?

Answer 1

There used to be a project dedicated to solve this defect: iphone-dev

The goal of the iphone-dev project is to create a free, portable, high quality toolchain to enable development for the Apple iPhone and other embedded devices based on the ARM/Darwin platform.

Answer 2

You're right non-jailbroken phones are limited to Apple's App store and Apple "has the right" to enforce whatever rule, it's totally nonfree territory. However while developing, one won't have to deal with Apple at all. You can use e.g. rsync to upload the code to the device and test it.

Answer 3

To provide a differing response, I'm running OS X and Xcode on a virtualised (VMware) machine on Linux. CPU is a Core2Quad (Q8800), and it is perfectly fast. I found a prebuilt VM online (I'll leave it to you to find) Xcode/iPhone development works perfectly, as does debugging via USB to the phone itself.

It actually surprised me a lot - but I've had no issues at all.

Answer 4

There's a framework called Rhodes.

The concept is based on Ruby on Rails and you develop your mobile app in Ruby and HTML, and you can write your code in a Linux environment. You can then create an account at Rhohub, where you add the code (through GitHub), and it allows you to compile it for iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian, all off the same code. You don't have to code in Objective-C for iPhone, nor Java for Android, etc. It does the conversions for you. All you need to do is stick to the Rules for creating an iPhone application (or the Phone's you want to develop for) so it can be accepted at iTunes (or the equivalent market).

This will allow you to add the app to iTunes as well.

I have not found any emulators, however, which means that to test your app you need to put it on an iPhone, which is a mission.

I am using this option as I want to create apps for all phones and I use Ruby on Rails already. If you just want to make an app for an iPhone, then invest in a Mac.

Hope this helps.

Answer 5

It seems to be true so far. The only SDK available from Apple only targets the MacOS environment. I've been upset about that, but I'm looking into buying a mac now, just to do iPhone development. I really dislike what they are doing, and I hope a good SDK come out for other environments, such as Linux and Windows.

Here's an article about their general ungoodness regarding the SDK:

The iPhone SDK and free software: not a match

Apple's recently released a software development kit (SDK) for the iPhone, but if you were hoping to port or develop original open source software with it, the news isn't good. Code signing and nondisclosure conditions make free software a no-go.

The SDK itself is a free download, with which you can write programs and run them on a software simulator. But in order to actually release software you've written, you must enroll in the iPhone Developer Program -- a step separate from downloading the SDK, and one that requires Apple's approval.

I think it's rather elitist for them to think only macos users are good enough to write programs for their phone, and the fact you need to buy a $100 license if you want to publish your stuff, really makes it more difficult for the hobbyist programmer. Though, if that's what you need to do, I'm planning on jumping through their hoops; I'd really like to get some stuff developed on my iPhone.

Answer 6

You will never get your app approved by Apple if it is not developed using Xcode. Never. And if you do hack the SDK to develop on Linux and Apple finds out, don't be surprised when you are served. I am a member of the ADC and the iPhone developer program. Trust, Apple is VERY serious about this.

Don't take the risk, Buy a Macbook or Mac mini (yes a mini can run Xcode - though slowly - boost the RAM if you go with the mini). Also, while I've seen OS X hacked to run on VMware I've never seen anyone running Xcode on VM. So good luck. And I'd check the EULA before you go through the trouble.

PS: After reading the above, yes I agree If you do hack the SDK and develop on Linux at least do the final packaging on a Mac. And submit it via a Mac. Apple doesn't run through the code line by line so i doubt they'd catch that. But man, that's a lot of if's and work. Be fun to do though. :)