Install and run iPhone apps without using Xcode (opens in new tab)

(github.com)

27 pointsfunhatch3y ago16 comments

16 comments

Anyone experience developing for iOS in Linux?

I tried it a couple of years ago and it was pure pain. Apple's vendor login forces to buy and use XCode.

It's been terrible. Recently I had to reset my apple developer password, and they literally went "oh, you don't have any available apple hardware? Well.... We can still do it, but now it will take several days". And this is after 2FA through SMS. It's been a week now, and stil no update.

I honestly think apple and their excellent marketing and previous decent hardware alternatives, is one of the worst things to happen to consumer computing. It served the "not Windows"-itch for a couple of decades, drawing driver and software manufacture towards a closed OS. Sometimes I think about what could have been. Hopefully getting there, just much more slowly.

musicale3y ago

> previous decent hardware alternatives

Apple Silicon seems like a pretty decent current hardware alternative, for some use cases at least

> It served the "not Windows"-itch for a couple of decades

For many people it also served the the Apple II, and pre-Windows-3 Macintosh, and iPod, and iPhone, and iPad, and Apple Watch, and AirPod itches, etc..

flohofwoe3y ago

Zig should be able to do it (the Zig toolchain can also be used to build regular C/C++/ObjC projects, not just Zig). But I think there's still work to be done to be able to build complete applications which could be uploaded to the Store. You also need a separate iOS SDK because this isn't bundled with Zig:

https://github.com/kubkon/zig-ios-example

For debugging you'd still need a Mac and iOS device though, so for the regular development workflow using a Mac still makes sense. But for CI builds being able to build on Linux is pretty big deal.

PebblesHD3y ago

If nothing else, the codebase for this has shown me how relatively painless it is to hook into external library code within DLLs from Python. I’ve been using Python for what I’d describe as normal work for years and didn’t know it was that simple, given its a use case I’ve not encountered yet in my work life.

js23y ago

Another example:

https://github.com/jaysoffian/eap_proxy/blob/master/eap_prox...

goldenkey3y ago

Perl is the defacto standard for this kind of stuff. It's easier here because the DLL is Objective C instead of pure C.

orf3y ago

Has Perl been the defacto standard for anything in the last 10 years?

1 more reply

vanillax3y ago

As an experiment this is cool. As an excuse not to buy a Mac to do iPhone development this is insanely useless and a waste of time. Just buy a damn Mac if you are gonna do anything with iPhone development.

inkeddeveloper3y ago

This says “without using Xcode” but the second requirement says “access to a Mac with Xcode.” So, it’s blatantly false.

funhatchOP3y ago

Use something like https://github.com/iGhibli/iOS-DeviceSupport to get the device support files, and https://pmbaty.com/iosbuildenv/ to develop apps

alien20033y ago

ReProvision?

easrng3y ago

I'm pretty sure ReProvision is not maintained anymore. AltStore with AltServer (unjailbroken) or AltDaemon (jailbroken) is the way to go.

jrc20223y ago

Good job!

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