I want to try testing my app on iOS simulator on my computer PC Windows. Have anyone tried to do that before?
We also had that problem. We found out, Apple things (as your simulation) can only be done on Apple computers. So if you want to have an IOS simulator you have this three options
Buy a mac (expensive)
Hackintosh or similar thing (a bit hard, because you need to keep your mac updated)
Use a cloud provider, which supports this (here I have no experience)
Related
We are starting to work with react-native at my company. We have one mac and the rest of the team is running on windows.
Is there a way to write the app on windows with the ios device connected to the windows machine or local wifi. Then launch the build on the mac (from the windows pc) and get the app launched on the ios device ? So it would like using the mac only as a build/package server.
Hope i am clear enought.
Thanks.
We can launch the build on windows using Virtual Machine, the detailed steps for doing that can be found in the following link:
https://blog.udemy.com/xcode-on-windows/
Honest advice
The functionality of developing IOS apps on windows is something that Apple intentionally wants to block and hence tries to give you hard time doing that by purposeful hindrances in the software that slow you down in such attempts.
To do that, you will need to install Xcode, which requires MacOS, which you would have to install on a virtual machine if you ever want to use on windows, which itself is against the apple terms and policy
So, even if it works, you wouldn't be smoothly developing in such blocked environment. So I believe it isn't worth spending time on.
I am writing this since I have tried it myself, and want to help you to not waste your time. Since most websites during search including on youtube, this subject is for clickbait with videos with more dislikes than likes. The most you can get is the following
Use cloud services like MacInCloud, MacStadium, XcodeClub ( They are expensive )
Install MacOS on virtual machine like VirtualBox or Vmware ( Apple intentionally hinders such activities and you will have hard time installing it let alone using it for bearable development )
Build and use hackintosh ( expensive, I prefer buying mac )
I hope this saves your time
You should explore the option of running macOS in VMWare on Windows machines for building purposes.
EDIT:
Now using:
expo build:android
expo build:ios
Way simpler.
Old question, but for’people who are still searching for an easy solution, take a look at https://appcenter.ms
App center let you to build iOS app in the cloud, it’s free (unless you need lot of builds), easy (you just need to know how provisioning profile and certificate works and host your code on a online fit repo).
We use it to build and deploy app on iOS and android for 3 year (even if we work on Mac)
We only have 2 main issues: it’s slow 30 minutes for an iOS build, and not extremely stable. Sometime we need to relaunch build 3-5 times.
Well, you can setup a virtual machine.
Install VM Ware software and add MacOS image to run the operating system.
Then setup Xcode and build the react native iOS app.
I'm using Visual Studio for Windows and I have a Xamarin Forms app for Android and iOS. I mostly test physically on Android (since that is much easier) and I have tested on an IPhone as well about a year ago, which worked fine (without a mac). Now I plugged it in again and it doesn't work anymore: the IPhone does not show up in the debugging list.
I have:
Apple Developer account and I'm connected with this account from Visual Studio
Identifier for Bundle
Profile (created by VS itself, with Type 'Development')
What am I missing here? I haven't added the provisioning profile in my solution, is that something that needs to be done? Am I missing another step?
I hope someone can help.
For the exact breakdown on how to setup and get started with your iOS solution, follow Microsoft's Xamarin iOS on Windows guide.
The tl;dr though is: you absolutely need a Mac to run a Xamarin iOS project, even on windows. I do not know how you had your project setup last time, however this has been the case since Xamarin's debut. Although, you could also just have access to a Mac through network connection instead of having a physical Mac. Without a physical device, you can use the Mac's ios simulator. If you are planning on using a physical iphone though, said device needs to be plugged into the Mac and not the windows machine. Later MacOS do support wireless connections of trusted devices, but it is still a wireless connection from the iphone to the mac (needing to be on the same network).
I apologize if this has been covered elsewhere. I have researched this topic to the best of my ability but I am still unsure of the answers I have found. I am a senior in college and I am developing an app to essentially act as a remote control for a device that my team is building for our senior capstone project. Everything is progressing fine for the Android app etc., but we are interested in developing an iOS app as well. We were steered toward Visual Studio 2015 or later for this since none of us own a Mac. We do not have an iPhone and we are not interested in trying to actually sell or deploy the app officially. All we really need is a means to simulate the iOS app on a PC and demonstrate that the functionality is still there to control our device.
I have seen several posts stating the requirement of a Mac regardless to, at the least, handle conversions for any app development on a Windows machine. I have also found a couple posts with a potential work around that involved installing a Mac VM, though I am not sure if these are "legal" solutions or not? We do not have it in our project budget to purchase any Mac systems, OS, or cloud services to develop the app. I have only done light work on Macs unrelated to programming so I know very little about what is possible regarding VMs etc.
At this point I am looking for some clarity on whether there is an actual legitimate and legal means to simulate an iOS app using Visual Studio and a Windows PC only? In our case, we would need the simulation to be able to connect to our device wirelessly and control it. It is OK that the physical device would actually be a Windows laptop, the CS department just wants to see that we have developed software that could in theory work on an iOS device. We would be presenting our work in detail during weekly updates so the solution would need to be above the table in all regards.
I apologize if this is answered elsewhere. The options in Visual Studio and most of the guides online are pretty unclear about what you can and can't do specifically under the various project types. We didn't want to get too deep into development with C# only to hit an impassable wall and lose all that time. It seems Apple keeps everything under close guard so I was suspicious about the VM alternatives to having a Mac. Thanks in advance for you time!
You must have a Mac to develop iOS apps, either to act as a build server, or as your primary development machine. Even when using Xamarin, the build tools and iOS Simulator are provided by Apple and will only run on Apple's OS. You can only legally run Mac OS on Apple hardware.
Just to add to the previous (and correct answer imo) which states that you need a mac to legally build IOS apps.
You don't need a powerful mac in order to do the building. I've been using a mac mini as a build server for a year now with no major problems. I wouldn't want to do any actual development on this machine, but it's great for sitting in the corner and doing builds sent via visual studio.
You can still do all IOS Dev on windows with visual studio (connected to the mac for building). Additionally with the enterprise version of VS you can run the IOS simulator on the PC, but again it requires a connected Mac. Although I'm hoping that they will eventually bring this functionality back to community users.
In your specific (academic) case whether or not you do manage to get a mac for building, I would suggest looking at Xamarin Test Cloud for providing evidence that your software will work on a large number of devices.
We are starting to work with react-native at my company. We have one mac and the rest of the team is running on windows.
Is there a way to write the app on windows with the ios device connected to the windows machine or local wifi. Then launch the build on the mac (from the windows pc) and get the app launched on the ios device ? So it would like using the mac only as a build/package server.
Hope i am clear enought.
Thanks.
We can launch the build on windows using Virtual Machine, the detailed steps for doing that can be found in the following link:
https://blog.udemy.com/xcode-on-windows/
Honest advice
The functionality of developing IOS apps on windows is something that Apple intentionally wants to block and hence tries to give you hard time doing that by purposeful hindrances in the software that slow you down in such attempts.
To do that, you will need to install Xcode, which requires MacOS, which you would have to install on a virtual machine if you ever want to use on windows, which itself is against the apple terms and policy
So, even if it works, you wouldn't be smoothly developing in such blocked environment. So I believe it isn't worth spending time on.
I am writing this since I have tried it myself, and want to help you to not waste your time. Since most websites during search including on youtube, this subject is for clickbait with videos with more dislikes than likes. The most you can get is the following
Use cloud services like MacInCloud, MacStadium, XcodeClub ( They are expensive )
Install MacOS on virtual machine like VirtualBox or Vmware ( Apple intentionally hinders such activities and you will have hard time installing it let alone using it for bearable development )
Build and use hackintosh ( expensive, I prefer buying mac )
I hope this saves your time
You should explore the option of running macOS in VMWare on Windows machines for building purposes.
EDIT:
Now using:
expo build:android
expo build:ios
Way simpler.
Old question, but for’people who are still searching for an easy solution, take a look at https://appcenter.ms
App center let you to build iOS app in the cloud, it’s free (unless you need lot of builds), easy (you just need to know how provisioning profile and certificate works and host your code on a online fit repo).
We use it to build and deploy app on iOS and android for 3 year (even if we work on Mac)
We only have 2 main issues: it’s slow 30 minutes for an iOS build, and not extremely stable. Sometime we need to relaunch build 3-5 times.
Well, you can setup a virtual machine.
Install VM Ware software and add MacOS image to run the operating system.
Then setup Xcode and build the react native iOS app.
I am developing an application for iPad but in reality i don't have the iPad.So is their any way to perform this task on windows platform without having the iPad.Is it possible to have an ipad simulator for windows?
Your help will surely appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Arvind Thakur
I did this for a project. It's a pain, but it can be done with VMWare, you just emulate Snow Leopard or whatever Mac OS (which you will have to purchase, luckily they are very cheap compared to Windows.) Then from VMWare you run can run XCode, which has a very nice iPad simulator which, while not a perfect simulator, certainly gave me no problems.
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Ok, there are things like hackintoshs, however I don't think it's worth the while.
Seriously, if you're planning to release an app for iPad, you should have tested it on an actual iPad prior to release. While the iPad Simulator is good, there still are differences - if your app runs on the simulator, that does not necessarily mean it will run on the device.
I think I remember that testing on an actual device prior to release is even required in the iOS Developer Terms of Use somewhere.
You'll find nicely priced 16 GB 1st Gen Units at an auction platform of your choice.
You can use Safari on Windows to simulate much of the iPad web environment if you're building a web-app, however building a true iPad application will require using Xcode on the Mac.