iOS Development options

Sonic2k

Sonic2k

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Hi
I know xcode is the preferred method of developing apps for iPad and iPhone, my question is this, is there any way to do this on a Windows PC. I cannot quite afford to get a Macbook right at this moment in time, and I don't have the patience or time to build a "hackintosh" either.

Any ideas/suggestions welcome.
 
It's possible to run a vmware for osx on windows so you can use xcode.

I don't have any links offhand but I've done it myself before so I can vouch it's possible.
 
I have used Virtualbox and installed osx and xcode, because I find Virtualbox faster than VMWare.

Using the correct BIOS was a bit of trial-and-error, but after that it ran without glitches.
 
Phonegap & Phonegap build. It allows you to develop and deploy to any platform.
 
Theres always Xamarin, if you want to spend R10k a year...

It allows you to code in C#.
 
Koosi said:
Heard bad things about most of these kinds of solutions.
The straight-up way is to use the bona fide xcode environment.
Click to expand...

We've had great success with Xamarin as you have access to the .net framework and linq, and it cross-compiles into native objective-c. But that's largely personal preference.

Web/Hybrid apps such as phonegap is a big no-no though in almost all cases.
 
Xamarin is a solution since I am a C# developer.
I spoke to the other guys, I will rather just do it the legit way, i.e. get a mac. I will, however play with Xamarin's free trial I saw on their website.
 
Koosi said:
Xamarin is a solution since I am a C# developer.
I spoke to the other guys, I will rather just do it the legit way, i.e. get a mac. I will, however play with Xamarin's free trial I saw on their website.
Click to expand...

I have installed Parrallels on my Mac and now I do XCode and Visual C++ on my Mac. I think I am almost ready to turn my windows desktop into another rackmounted unix server.
 
Koosi said:
Xamarin is a solution since I am a C# developer.
I spoke to the other guys, I will rather just do it the legit way, i.e. get a mac. I will, however play with Xamarin's free trial I saw on their website.
Click to expand...

Do try it out, the integration with Xcode for front-end design works fantastic and Xamarin studio for Mac is really solid. Like I said it's mostly personal preference, but objective-c being the ghastly archaic language that it is made me go with C#.

There are some things with generics and reflection you can't do due to JIT limitations, the rest is all there.
 
I will look into this. The thing is, until about 2 years ago I used to still use objective-C so its nothing new to me. Its just tiresome because you have to do all the work, none of the cool features of .net exist i.e. no reflection. It takes 1/2 the time to develop C# applications.

slightly OT:
Since I also do embedded, I have seen a massive shift of all the vendors towards Mac because of the persistent USB issues with Windows 7 and Windows 8 which makes life difficult for us chaps who have to plug a piece of hardware into a computer. So for that reason, and the fact that I need to develop an app to interact with hardware on Apple, I think I need to just do it and go buy a Macbook. We got all my stuff to run in parallels, something we cannot do with Windows 7, even with VMWare installed correctly, running XP in the VM. With Windows 7 they changed the entire USB subsystem, for no good reason, which broke almost all of the hardware many of us used to do in-circuit debugging and emulation. Some of the vendors moved to fix this, but at a huge performance penalty.
 
Frikkenator said:
Not phonegap... never phonegap.
Click to expand...

I've built 3 apps for clients with phonegap and besides the initial learning curve headaches, it was fine.

It's supported by Adobe, so it's actually getting somewhere.

have you had some bad experiences?
 
Koosi said:
Xamarin is a solution since I am a C# developer.
I spoke to the other guys, I will rather just do it the legit way, i.e. get a mac. I will, however play with Xamarin's free trial I saw on their website.
Click to expand...

Get the Mac Mini. It's the simplest and cheapest solution.
 
Xamarin arguably makes it easier for some C# converts; yet nothing IMO quite beats coding in Apple's native environment (Objective-C, C++ & C), it's instruments and Xcode server integration (automated on device testing). Oh and a Mac will be a must; VMs certainly aren't robust enough for frequent coding.

Objc has progressed quite a bit in the last few years; making it certainly far simpler and expedient for coding than it used to be. Btw I had a past client who strongly pushed for Xamarin, and whilst initially this didn't seem to be a hinderance, it ultimately became just that; re most skilled iOS / OS X developers they recruited for maintenance and enhancements were skilled with objc / Xcode -- so ultimately all routines were finally converted and Xamarin finally abandoned.

The only perceived benefit of Xamarin is in utilising existing C# skills; but to honest that's far from the real challenge in developing for a mobile environment like iOS; keep in mind that C# developers aren't innately capable on iOS, so much of the transition is in understanding for example: how iOS works under the covers, familiarization with the API, device limitations, ...

As to code portability; arguably the belief that code will somehow be easily transportable between environments, is quite laughable, bordering on fallacy. I'd even argue that something like Apportable.com does a far superior job of simplifying the code transition between iOS and Android than Xamarin could ever hope to achieve.
 
Last edited:
Koosi said:
Xamarin is a solution since I am a C# developer.
I spoke to the other guys, I will rather just do it the legit way, i.e. get a mac. I will, however play with Xamarin's free trial I saw on their website.
Click to expand...

You will get a mac in any case.
You run xamarin studio on the mac itself, even though you can develop in Visual Studio on windows and remotely debug.
But that's a pain in the behind just to stay on windows IMHO.

My problem with objective-c is, it is the first "commercial" language I have seen in a long time that made me go wtf, are they trying to confuse people?
 
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kolaval said:
My problem with objective-c is, it is the first "commercial" language I have seen in a long time that made me go wtf, are they trying to confuse people?
Click to expand...
That initial shock / confusion is short lived, assuming of course you're looking at clean and well refactored code; a mess in any language remains just that.
 
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