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Is there any way to tinker with the iPhone SDK on a Windows machine? Are there plans for an iPhone SDK version for Windows?
The only other way I can think of doing this is to run a Mac VM image on a VMWare server running on Windows, although I'm not too sure how legal this is.
It's certainly possible to develop on a Windows machine, in fact, my first application was exclusively developed on the old Dell Precision I had at the time :)
There are three routes;
Install OSx86 (aka iATKOS / Kalyway) on a second partition/disk and dual boot.
Run Mac OS X Server under VMWare (Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) onwards, read the update below).
Use a framework and/or toolset, which allows developing on Windows, like Delphi XE4 with the mac-in-cloud service, which can build without MacOS device need. This is a commercial toolset, but the component and lib support is growing.
Other honorable mentions are Flutter, Xamarin and similar; which may at end need actual MacOS device for final build (but you can test on Android till then, as they're cross-platform).
The first route requires modifying (or using a pre-modified) image of Leopard that can be installed on a regular PC. This is not as hard as you would think, although your success/effort ratio will depend upon how closely the hardware in your PC matches that in Mac hardware - e.g. if you're running a Core 2 Duo on an Intel Motherboard, with an NVidia graphics card you are laughing. If you're running an AMD machine or something without SSE3 it gets a little more involved.
If you purchase (or already own) a version of Leopard then this is a gray area since the Leopard EULA states you may only run it on an "Apple Labeled" machine. As many point out if you stick an Apple sticker on your PC you're probably covered.
The second option is more costly. The EULA for the workstation version of Leopard prevents it from being run under emulation and as a result, there's no support in VMWare for this. Leopard server, however, CAN be run under emulation and can be used for desktop purposes. Leopard server and VMWare are expensive, however.
If you're interested in option 1) I would suggest starting at Insanelymac and reading the OSx86 sections.
I do think you should consider whether the time you will invest is going to be worth the money you will save though. It was for me because I enjoy tinkering with this type of stuff and I started during the early iPhone betas, months before their App Store became available.
Alternatively, you could pick up a low-spec Mac Mini from eBay. You don't need much horsepower to run the SDK and you can always sell it on later if you decide to stop development or buy a better Mac.
Update: You cannot create a Mac OS X Client virtual machine for OS X 10.6 and earlier. Apple does not allow these Client OSes to be virtualized. With Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) onwards, Apple has changed its licensing agreement in regards to virtualization. Source: VMWare KnowledgeBase
Xamarin is a solid choice. It was purchased by Microsoft and is now built directly into Visual Studio. You code in C#. With all the updates and features they are adding, you can do everything but submit to the App Store from Windows, even compile, build and deploy to an iOS device.
For games, Unity 3D is a great option. The editor is free to use for development, and even for distribution (if you have less than 100K USD in annual revenue). Unity supports iOS, Android and most other platforms. It may be possible to use Unity's "Cloud Build" feature to avoid having to use a Mac for deployment, although by default Unity actually spits out an Xcode project when building for iOS.
Other options:
PhoneGap (html/javascript) also works. It isn't quite as nice for gaming, but it's pretty decent for regular GUI applications.
Flutter (dart) is a free cross platform mobile app development framework from Google. Write your code in Dart.
React Native (javascript) is another popular cross-platform framework created by Facebook.
Note that: for all of these options, all or most of the development can be done on Windows, but a MacOS device is still required to build a binary for submission to the App Store. One option is to get a cheap MAC Mini to do your final build.
If you have a jailbroken iPhone, you can install the iphone-gcc toolchain onto the iPhone through Cydia and that way you can just compilie the apps on the iPhone. Apps that are developed this way can still be submitted to the App Store.
And although Mr Valdez said it is a grey area (which it is), jailbreaking is incredibly easy and pretty much risk free. Yes, it voids your warrenty but you can just do a restore and they will never know.
Most of "so called Windows solutions for iOS development without Mac" require Mac at the end just to sign and send to app store. I checked a few, not all though (who has the time?)
At the end it's just too much trouble to learn "their super special easy way to program iOS without Objective-C", they have lots of bugs. Really the goal they are setting is unachievable in my view.
Also a lot of time they make you use Objective-C equivalent statements simply in another language. They kind of look the same but there are always subtle differences that you have to learn on top of obj-c. Which also makes even less sense, because now instead of learning less you have to learn more. So where is the gain?
Also they cost a lot, because they are very hard to develop.
Many lack any debugging abilities whatsoever.
In my honest opinion, if you are a hard-core iOS developer then for sure buy the best Mac and learn objective-c. It's expensive and takes time, but if it's your path, it's worth it.
For an occasional use, it's just easier to rent a remote Mac service, like XCodeClub.com
The SDK is only available on OS X, forcing you to use a mac. If you don't want to purchase a mac you can either run OS X on a virtual machine on your windows box, or you can install OS X on your PC.
In my experience the virtual machine solution is unusably slow (on a core2 duo laptop with 2G ram). If you feel like trying it search for the torrent. It's probably not worthwhile.
The other option is to install OS X on your PC, commonly referred to as a hackintosh. Hackintoshes work quite well - my friend just sold his mac because his Dell quad core hackintosh was actually much faster than the apple hardware (and cost about 1/3).
Of course both of these options are likely counter to some licensing scheme, so proceed at your own risk.
You can use WinChain
Quoting the project page:
It's the easiest way to build the iPhone toolchain on a Windows XP/Vista computer, which in turn, can take Objective-C source code that you write using their UIKit Headers (included with winChain) and compile it into an application that you can use on your iPhone.
You don't need to own a Mac nor do you need to learn Objective-C. You can develop in different environments and compile into Objective-C later on.
developing for the iphone and ipad by runing osx 10.6(snow leopard)
This article one of our developers wrote gives a pretty comprehensive walk through on installing OS X Snow Leopard on Windows using iBoot, then installing Vmware (with instructions), then getting your iPhone dev environment going... and a few extra juicy things. Super helpful for me.
Hope that helps. It uses Phonegap so you can develop on multiple smart phone platforms at once.
You can use Tersus (free, open source).
A devkit that allows one to develop iPhone apps in Objective-C, C++ or just plain C with Visual Studio:
Check it out at iOS build env
You can build iPhone apps directly within Visual Studio (2008, 2010, Express).
Pretty neat, it even builds IPA files for your app after a successful compilation. The code works as is on jailbroken devices, for the rest of the planet I believe the final compilation & submission to the App Store has to be done on a Mac. But still, it enables you to develop using a well-known IDE.
Of course, you can write Objective-C code in notepad or other programs and then move it to a Mac to compile.
But seriously, it depends on whether you are developing official applications to put in App Store or developing applications for jailbroken iPhone. To write official applications, Apple iPhone SDK which requires an Intel Mac seems to be the only practical way. However, there is an unofficial toolchain to write applications for jailbroken iPhones. You can run it on Linux and Windows (using Cygwin).
Try macincloud.com It allows you to rent a mac and access it through RDP remote control. You can then use your PC to access a mac and then develop your apps.
You will soon be able to use Adobe Flash CS 5 to create Apps for the iPhone on Windows:
flashcs 5
flashcs5 apps for iphone
Hooray! You can now more easily accomplish this with the latest Xamarin.iOS, using a network-linked mac providing the build and deployment capabilities.
See here for more details:
introduction to xamarin ios for visual studio
If you want it to be legitimate, you have two options, cloud based Mac solutions or cross-platform development tools.
You may consider the hackintosh approach or virtual machines if you don't care about legal stuff. If you have a decent PC, running a virtual machine would be the easiest way to go. You may never know which hardware will have driver issues on a hackintosh.
I've tried all these approaches and they all have pros and cons, but for the second group, I feel kind of guilty. I develop apps to make a living and I wouldn't want to rip off someone else for it.
If you are making a small project, cloud based Macs may prove useful. Rent it for a short time, develop your project and off you go. Don't bother learning anything new.
However, if your project is getting big, cross-platform frameworks seem to be the only alternative. The critical thing is that you need to choose wisely. There are so many hybrid frameworks, but what they do can be summarized in one sentence as "diplaying web pages in an app wrapper" and developers' negative experience with hybrid frameworks also affects native frameworks.
I tried three of these (Titanium, Smartface and Xamarin) and they all claim to produce "real native output" and in my opinion their claims are correct. You need to test and see it yoursrlf, it's not easy to describe the native feeling. In a previous comment, it was indicated that it takes some effort to learn these platforms, but once you get to know them, you can develop not just iOS applications but Android applications as well, all with the common code base. And of course, they are much cheaper than a cloud Mac. Some of them are even free. You would need a Mac only for store submission.
If you know JavaScript, try Titanium and Smartface and if you know C#, try Xamarin. Just note that for the device simuator, Titanium is dependent on a Mac, but Smartface has a simulator app for Windows development and it works better than I expected. On the other hand, Xamarin requires a Mac in your network.
If you want to create iPhone apps but no Mac, then you should try http://www.pmbaty.com/iosbuildenv/
It allows you to easily develop native iOS apps, like with XCode, deployable on any iPhone, iPod or iPad (jailbroken or not).
Use your favourite IDE to code in Objective-C, C++, C or ARM assembly, like in XCode. ARC and blocks are supported.
Compile your iPhone apps directly inside Visual Studio
It works on Windows all versions (XP, 7, 8), FreeBSD and Linux
Now with iOS8 support.
Check out this:
Over view
It is a project that attempts to be able to cross-compile programs written in a variety of source languages to a variety of target languages. One of the initial test cases was to write programs in Java and run them on an iPhone. Watching the video on the site is worthwhile.
With that said, I haven't tried it. The project seems quite beta, and there isn't a lot of activity on their SourceForge site.
You can use Intel XDK with that you can develop and publish app for iOS without mac.
Click here for detail.
Interesting that no one has mentioned the cross-platform wxWidgets option.
It's less than an optimal solution, though.
IMHO, the business-wisest way to go is to invest the money in Apple's endorsed framework. That way, if you find yourself stuck with some mind-boggling problem, you have a much larger community of developers to consult with.
YOU CAN DEVELOP IPHONE APPS ON WINDOWS PC. I've done it, with complex apps. And it works perfectly. You can develop iphone apps without ever seeing a mac or iphone.
You can develop on windows an HTML (or better: HTML5) app, using tools like Sencha or JQTouch, or mobi1. (They used to all be free for a while)
Then you use openSSL to sign the app. And Adobe PhoneGAP Build service to build IPhone App.
But you need the iphone developer licence to install it on an iphone. But you don't need a mac or iphone at any minute to compile, build or test it - all that is done ON THE PC.
I've done it, and it works perfectly. (But with Android type responsiveness - not as fast as a native IPhone app)
You could also use a program from the the Babylonian era (circa 300 bc) running C and C++ called dragonfly. If your app has one or two screens with limited interactivity, and many calculations, go for it. It includes an emulator. You compile to the iphone at the press of a button. (Not sure, but I think you do need a developers license in any case)
And then there is Xamarin. You develop in C# with special calls to native code. You'll have to learn the environment.
Oracle VirtualBox allows users to install Mac OS X in a virtual machine. If you are comfortable with it, you could just use that way to use Xcode. This is legal if you "dual boot" your mac into windows, then install the VirtualBox within windows (or linux).
Other possibilities are cross-compilers such as Appcelerator Titanium (HTML, CSS and JavaScript) or MonoTouch (.NET).
You can use Sentenza for make applications for iPhone, on Windows.
Tested with success.
It's not a solution but a good alternative !
Two other options
Titanium Developer - free community edition - write in HTML/JavaScript - compile with Xcode (requires a Mac or VM)
OpenPlus ELIPS Studio - write in Flex, compile on Xcode (requires a Mac or VM) - they just started charging for their product however.
I think there may be 'toolchain' options for these and some of the others mentioned, which allow you to compile to binary on Windows, and I have seen that you can upload a zip file and have a toolchain style compile done for you online, but this goes against the Apple licensing.
If I am not mistaken, a product such as Titanium that outputs/works with Xcode and does not use any 3rd party / alternative / restricted libraries should be in compliance, because you are ultimately compiling in xcode - normal Objective-C code and libraries.
As has been pointed you can attempt to use the WinChain but if you are a newbie coder it won't be easy.
The iPhone SDK will work on Hackintoshes (a normal PC with OS X installed on it). I know as I have one and it does.
So after you go buy an OSX license you could TRY to install it on your PC on a different drive using Boot-132 or one of the other installers like iDeneb. The issue you will have to do a lot of tinkering and things still won't work quite right.
Using Xamarin now we can develop iPhone applications in Windows machine itself with the help of Xamarin Live Player.
Using this Xamarin live player dev/deploy/debug cycle can now be done without an Apple system.
But to sign and release the app Apple system is required.
Find the reference here
I checked the reference nothing dodgy
Yes and you don't need to learn Objective-C and buying Apple software and hardware.
Adobe have created compilator from ActionScript 3 to program for iOS. And later Apple approved this method of application creation.
This is best way to create Apple applications under Windows or Linux/BSD (and another one for MacOS-X)
If you want to develop an application on Windows environment then there is an option, you can install MAC OS in your windows Platform name is : "Niresh'MAC OS" , you can search that text on Google
then you can download the whole MAC OS Source and easily installed MAC OS in your Windows PC, Niresh is able to Hack the whole OS.
Hope this will help you.
You can install OSX on PC but experience wont be great and it needs lot of work. Alternate is to use a framework/SDK Codename one: which is based on JAVA and can be used to code in WP8, Android, iOS on Windows (eclipse) with all extensive features
Features Overview:
Full Android environment with super fast android simulator
An iPhone/iPad simulator with easy to take iPhone apps to large screen iPad in minutes.
Full support for standard java debugging, profiling for apps on any platform.
Easy themeing / styling – Only a click away
More at Develop Android, iOS iPhone, WP8 apps using Java
Disclaimer: This is my review for the product
Develop iOS Apps on Windows With Cross-Platform Tools
Cross-platform tools are awesome: you code your app once, and export it to iOS and Android. That could potentially cut your app development time and cost in half. Several cross-platform tools allow you to develop iOS apps on a Windows PC, or allow you to compile the app if there’s a Mac in your local network.
Well, not so fast…
The cross-platform tool ecosystem is very large. On the one side you have complete Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) like Xamarin, that allow you to build cross-platform apps with C#.
The middle ground is covered by tools like PhoneGap, Cordova, Ionic and Appcelerator, that let you build native apps with HTML5 components. The far end includes smaller platforms like React Native that allow you to write native apps with a JavaScript wrapper.
The one thing that stands out for all cross-platform tools is this: they’re not beginner friendly! It’s much easier to get access to a Mac, learn Swift, and build a simple app, than it is to get started with Xamarin.
Most of the cross-platform tools require you to have a basic understanding of programming, compilation options, and the iOS and Android ecosystems. That’s something you don’t really have as a beginner developer!
Having said that, let’s look at a couple of options:
If you’re familiar with Windows-based development tools and IDEs, and if you already know how to code, it’s worthwhile to check out Xamarin. With Xamarin you code apps in C#, for multiple platforms, using the Mono and MonoTouch frameworks.
If you’re familiar with web-based development, check out PhoneGap or Ionic. You’ll feel right at home with HTML 5, CSS and JavaScript. Don’t forget: a native app works different than a website…
If you’re familiar with JavaScript, or if you’d rather learn to code JavaScript than Swift, check out React Native. With React Native you can code native apps for iOS and Android using a “wrapper”.
Always deliberately choose for cross-platform tools because it’s a smart option, not because you think a native platform language is bad. The fact that one option isn’t right, doesn’t immediately make another option smarter!
If you don’t want to join the proprietary closed Apple universe, don’t forget that many cross-platform tools are operated by equally evil companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Adobe and Amazon.
An often heard argument against cross-platform tools is that they offer limited access to and support for smartphone hardware, and are less “snappy” than their native counterparts. Keep in mind that any cross-platform tool will require you to write platform-specific code at one point, especially if you want to code custom features.
If you have ssh access to a Mac, then you can use a VNC (like Vine VNC, which allows multiple uses at once - thin thin client) to control XCode.
This could be useful if you wanted to access a Mac Mini from a laptop, or your S.O. is hogging your MacBook.
You may try to develop web apps for iPhone using HTML, JavaScript, CSS. Check the getting started info at Apple's site.
I'd like to know what is the simplest way to build a video playing app that runs under iOS. I'm using the JUCE Framework that allows to develop under Windows with e.g. Visual Studio and code programs for Android, iOS, etc.
I've looke around libVLC, FFMPEG and so on. But all of these are intended to be developed under Linux, I think.
Does somebody have an easy Example for JUCE to build an iOS player app working under Visual Studio?
Coding
There's nothing to step you writing the code itself; IDEs are just fancy text editors with other tools built in (in the case of Visual Studio, a full code translation toolchain).
You'll probably find that things like code completion won't work, as JUCE will #ifdef parts of the codebase out depending on what project type you're launching, but last I checked (when I worked there) there was no Visual Studio iOS project exporter available, so you'll have to just use a Windows compatible one and program through that.
Building
In order to build an iOS app, you need a Mac. If you take a look at the documentation, it states:
For iOS projects, connect to a networked Mac and start the Mac emulator from Visual Studio.
No cross-platform library that I know can circumvent this restriction; I believe it's due to a legal requirement enforced by Apple.
With that said, if you don't own a Mac you might be able to "rent" one using a service like Mac In Cloud. I'm not a lawyer, some please make sure you check the legality of using such a cloud service for building iOS apps before doing so.
Debugging
Since you need to be able to compile in order to debug a specific build of the application, the section on building applies. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from debugging it without a build by reading the source code carefully, but I'm guessing that's not what you're asking about.
Back in the days of Delphi 7, remote debugging was mostly ok. You set up a TCP/IP connection, tweaked a few things in the linker and you could (just about) step through code running on another PC whilst keeping your Delphi IDE and its libraries on your development PC.
Today, with Delphi XE2,3,4 you have paserver which, at least at the moment can be flaky and slow. It is essential for iOS (cross platform) development, but here at Applied Relay Testing we often have to debug on embedded PC's that run recent Windows. To do this we have employed a number of strategies but the hardest situation of all is to visit a customer site and wish that one could 'drop in' a Delphi IDE + libraries and roll up ones sleeves to step through and set breakpoints in source code.
It is quite likely - hopefully - that the paserver remote debugging workflow and its incarnations will improve over time but for now I got to wondering how it might be possible to install Delphi + libraries + our source code on a USB key so that with only a minimal, perhaps automated setup, one could plug that key into a PC and be compiling, running and debugging fairly quickly.
I can see that the registry is one of the possible issues however I do remember that Embarcadero once talked about being able to run their apps from a USB key. Knowing how much of a pain it is to install my 20-odd libraries into Delphi though, it is not trivial and needs thinking about.
Has anyone done anything like this or have any ideas of how it might be done?
Delphi does not support what you are asking for. But what you could do is create a virtual machine with your OS, IDE, libraries etc installed in it, then copy the VM onto a USB drive, install the VM software on the customer system, and run your VM as-is. There are plenty of VM systems to choose from.
First, I need to get this out of the way: embedded PCs running Windows?? Sob.
Ok, now for a suggestion: if a full virtual machine isn't an option for this task, application-level virtualization may be. This intercepts registry calls and other application-level information and maps them to a local copy, allowing essentially any application to be turned into a portable version. The good news is that there are free versions of several programs that can turn Windows programs into virtualized apps.
The only one I've personally used is MojoPac, and found it delivered as promised although was very slow running off of a (old, very slow) flash drive.
http://lifehacker.com/309233/make-any-application-portable-with-mojopac-freedom
I haven't used this newer "freedom" version though.
Two other programs I've seen that appear to be popular are Cameyo:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/create-your-own-portable-virtual-version-any-windows-program.htm
and P-Apps,
http://dottech.org/26404/create-a-portable-version-of-any-software-with-p-apps/
but I can't vouch for the quality of either of these two.
Hope this helps.
As perhaps you know already, most probably the next version of Delphi will be cross-platform. Also, here are some polls on the matter.
While writing a cross-compiler isn't a thing which interests us very much now, porting a library which was/is Windows-tied to multiple platforms, certainly does.
You can think, for example at VCL (Delphi's standard library). While it was designed for Windows only, it has value in it, and, of course, there are huge codebases which depend on it.
The question is:
Which would be the best approach to made an application / library cross-platform aware ensuring a smooth conversion / upgrade path (as much as possible of course)?
I stress it again, we are not interested which is the best way to do cross-platform development only (there were questions on this theme). We are interested also in yet another requirement: The old code base / installations management.
PS: Experiences and/or methodologies from similar situations with other languages (eg. C/C++) which are regarded as standard practices are welcomed.
Thanks in advance.
Visual component developer's perspective:
Add levels of functionality to your code, so as to be able to add another platform without changing the "Core" of the component.
The compiler hopefully will have a platform switch. (Preferable more than one, working in conjunction with each other. ex. Windows/ARM, Windows/386, OSX/Cacao/386, Linux/Gnome/386).
The Layout structure might look something like this.
ComponentJ.pas
Linux\ComponentJ.pas
Linux\Gnome\ComponentJ.pas
Linux\KDE\ComponentJ.pas
OSX\ComponentJ.pas
386\ComponentJ.pas
ARM\ComponentJ.pas
As an Application Developer:
I'll start by moving all WIN API calls in my code into a group of libraries in a Windows directory as to be able to IFDEF it at library level and translate it into another platform I'd like to support as soon as the compiler becomes available, but only as I come across them.)
This will also add the possibility to add adapters easier for the new platforms.
It in any case is good practice to remove possible dependencies into a central place.
IMHO you can't build a xplatform Delphi and ensure a smooth transition for current VCL applications. It won't work. VCL was (luckily, because it allowed for great applications) designed with Windows in mind, and trying to design a compatible library working on a different platform would just mean longer development cycles and lots of compromises. The outcome will be a library noone would wish to use. Look at what happened to VCL.NET: it was the wrong choice. And it was working on the same OS!
We know that targeting non-Windows platform with native applications needs a native GUI library. We don't care about creating a GUI from scratch, for our application it's the way to go, we don't need Windows GUIs with all their standards under a different OS using different standards - we need to be able to code a fully native GUI for the target OS.
Other applications may survive a GUI porting, but in the long run you don't get a real xplatform tool - you get a tool that may compile for other platforms but brings one platform paradigms to others - and it will also be not welcome by "native" developers on other platforms. If you're a Linux or Mac developer, why should you learn how to work with a library that carries its Windows inheritance to your platform? You'd find it a pain in the ass. If Embarcadero wants to sell XDelphi outside actual developers base, it has to offer much more than a new CLX.
I will pull from some ancient experience in making a code base cross compilable between windows and dos (Delphi 1/Turbo Pascal 7). The rule of thumb was to separate code into multiple units. Try to code WITHOUT using windows, messages or any visual components. If you find you need to make a call to one of these, then place that call in another unit and write a proxy (abstract class that you descend from works well) to dispatch the calls through. When a cross compatible version is released, all that you should have to do is code the other side of the proxy for the new target.
If you're designing a form based system, then try to stick with as many of the standard components as possible. NEVER implement any "business" rules directly in an event, instead place them in another unit and call into the other unit to perform the logic.
Now, there will definitely be changes required to get your final project cross compatible, but by following these simple patterns you should be able to greatly reduce the amount of work it will take.
Experience so far has shown that the best way to get a Delphi app compatible with future versions is to stick to pure Delphi components, and use nothing third party. Such an app will probably suck, but that's how it seems to me. I use lots of third party components, and the apps are great and successful. But the chances of them moving to this future too are not certain, and that may cause problems with such changes, but I'd rather have a great app now and have the problem than have a poor app now and not need to worry about it.
Compromises should not be done too much to make VCL compatible with Linux and Mac. Windows is VCL's root. I'll prefer a new and very clean GUI framework, even though without any backward compatibility. Make VCL fatter and fatter isn't a good idea!
make a cross-platform Pascal compiler
make a cross-platform RTL
put the QT on top
Well, look at freepascal and lazarus
I don't get it. All .NET looks the same to me providing we don't use any third party.
Delphi using standard control is already fully functional but your app would look
like thousands of others.
I think Embar should go for PDA, IPhone, Andriod as Windows desktop already eat about
98% of the market.
Mac is expensive and Linux is no cost at all. No use to go for Mac and Linux. Not worth
the investment.
Well, aside the things said - thanks all - I do think that there we need some additional things:
we need tooling to do the necessary conversions
we need tooling to help us in programming against a (some form of) MVC pattern
Simply pick the latest 4.6 QT and add good integration betwen the Pascal and the QT library.
They have done it before (in the Kylix times). The QT is such powerfull these days.
I believe that QT is even better then VCL and at least 10 times more frequently updated and fixed.
So the plan is simple:
make a cross-platform Pascal compiler
make a cross-platform RTL
put the QT on top
and you will have a first-class natively looking applications on all platforms.
My opinion:
Make cross platform compiler (OS x/Linux/ embedded solutions?/ symbian?). Maybe add ability to compile/convert pascal code into portable c/c++ code to build then on embedded platforms.
RTL have to be separated into cross-platform layer and native layer (as for JCL).
Add new core components for cross-platform compatibility and native components for each supported platform (QT for ex)
Add translation utilities to create/convert between platform's components, for ex: to convert pure windows form into mac os x cocoa's form.
All windows hierarchy of components have to be only upgraded to support x64 with maximum backward compatibility. All cross-platform component have to be in parallel hierarchy.
Next version of cross platform solution can be refactored and can include migration/convertion utility. Due to minimum codebase of cross-platform solutions, hierarchy and classes for cross platform can be heavily changed from version to version to achieve best architecture.
sorry for my English - not a native language (Russian is)!
Make C/C++/Delphi compilers that targets OSX/Linux
Make C/C++ compiler that can be Boosted
Write new VCL-Presentation Foundation (VGScene/WPF alike)
it should not be backward compatibile! Delphi IDE should be
written with such VCL-PF
Component Library should stay as it is (but with improved Data-Binding)
Only provide VCL 64-bit for Win64
Is this a problem?
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Is there any way to tinker with the iPhone SDK on a Windows machine? Are there plans for an iPhone SDK version for Windows?
The only other way I can think of doing this is to run a Mac VM image on a VMWare server running on Windows, although I'm not too sure how legal this is.
It's certainly possible to develop on a Windows machine, in fact, my first application was exclusively developed on the old Dell Precision I had at the time :)
There are three routes;
Install OSx86 (aka iATKOS / Kalyway) on a second partition/disk and dual boot.
Run Mac OS X Server under VMWare (Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) onwards, read the update below).
Use a framework and/or toolset, which allows developing on Windows, like Delphi XE4 with the mac-in-cloud service, which can build without MacOS device need. This is a commercial toolset, but the component and lib support is growing.
Other honorable mentions are Flutter, Xamarin and similar; which may at end need actual MacOS device for final build (but you can test on Android till then, as they're cross-platform).
The first route requires modifying (or using a pre-modified) image of Leopard that can be installed on a regular PC. This is not as hard as you would think, although your success/effort ratio will depend upon how closely the hardware in your PC matches that in Mac hardware - e.g. if you're running a Core 2 Duo on an Intel Motherboard, with an NVidia graphics card you are laughing. If you're running an AMD machine or something without SSE3 it gets a little more involved.
If you purchase (or already own) a version of Leopard then this is a gray area since the Leopard EULA states you may only run it on an "Apple Labeled" machine. As many point out if you stick an Apple sticker on your PC you're probably covered.
The second option is more costly. The EULA for the workstation version of Leopard prevents it from being run under emulation and as a result, there's no support in VMWare for this. Leopard server, however, CAN be run under emulation and can be used for desktop purposes. Leopard server and VMWare are expensive, however.
If you're interested in option 1) I would suggest starting at Insanelymac and reading the OSx86 sections.
I do think you should consider whether the time you will invest is going to be worth the money you will save though. It was for me because I enjoy tinkering with this type of stuff and I started during the early iPhone betas, months before their App Store became available.
Alternatively, you could pick up a low-spec Mac Mini from eBay. You don't need much horsepower to run the SDK and you can always sell it on later if you decide to stop development or buy a better Mac.
Update: You cannot create a Mac OS X Client virtual machine for OS X 10.6 and earlier. Apple does not allow these Client OSes to be virtualized. With Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) onwards, Apple has changed its licensing agreement in regards to virtualization. Source: VMWare KnowledgeBase
Xamarin is a solid choice. It was purchased by Microsoft and is now built directly into Visual Studio. You code in C#. With all the updates and features they are adding, you can do everything but submit to the App Store from Windows, even compile, build and deploy to an iOS device.
For games, Unity 3D is a great option. The editor is free to use for development, and even for distribution (if you have less than 100K USD in annual revenue). Unity supports iOS, Android and most other platforms. It may be possible to use Unity's "Cloud Build" feature to avoid having to use a Mac for deployment, although by default Unity actually spits out an Xcode project when building for iOS.
Other options:
PhoneGap (html/javascript) also works. It isn't quite as nice for gaming, but it's pretty decent for regular GUI applications.
Flutter (dart) is a free cross platform mobile app development framework from Google. Write your code in Dart.
React Native (javascript) is another popular cross-platform framework created by Facebook.
Note that: for all of these options, all or most of the development can be done on Windows, but a MacOS device is still required to build a binary for submission to the App Store. One option is to get a cheap MAC Mini to do your final build.
If you have a jailbroken iPhone, you can install the iphone-gcc toolchain onto the iPhone through Cydia and that way you can just compilie the apps on the iPhone. Apps that are developed this way can still be submitted to the App Store.
And although Mr Valdez said it is a grey area (which it is), jailbreaking is incredibly easy and pretty much risk free. Yes, it voids your warrenty but you can just do a restore and they will never know.
Most of "so called Windows solutions for iOS development without Mac" require Mac at the end just to sign and send to app store. I checked a few, not all though (who has the time?)
At the end it's just too much trouble to learn "their super special easy way to program iOS without Objective-C", they have lots of bugs. Really the goal they are setting is unachievable in my view.
Also a lot of time they make you use Objective-C equivalent statements simply in another language. They kind of look the same but there are always subtle differences that you have to learn on top of obj-c. Which also makes even less sense, because now instead of learning less you have to learn more. So where is the gain?
Also they cost a lot, because they are very hard to develop.
Many lack any debugging abilities whatsoever.
In my honest opinion, if you are a hard-core iOS developer then for sure buy the best Mac and learn objective-c. It's expensive and takes time, but if it's your path, it's worth it.
For an occasional use, it's just easier to rent a remote Mac service, like XCodeClub.com
The SDK is only available on OS X, forcing you to use a mac. If you don't want to purchase a mac you can either run OS X on a virtual machine on your windows box, or you can install OS X on your PC.
In my experience the virtual machine solution is unusably slow (on a core2 duo laptop with 2G ram). If you feel like trying it search for the torrent. It's probably not worthwhile.
The other option is to install OS X on your PC, commonly referred to as a hackintosh. Hackintoshes work quite well - my friend just sold his mac because his Dell quad core hackintosh was actually much faster than the apple hardware (and cost about 1/3).
Of course both of these options are likely counter to some licensing scheme, so proceed at your own risk.
You can use WinChain
Quoting the project page:
It's the easiest way to build the iPhone toolchain on a Windows XP/Vista computer, which in turn, can take Objective-C source code that you write using their UIKit Headers (included with winChain) and compile it into an application that you can use on your iPhone.
You don't need to own a Mac nor do you need to learn Objective-C. You can develop in different environments and compile into Objective-C later on.
developing for the iphone and ipad by runing osx 10.6(snow leopard)
This article one of our developers wrote gives a pretty comprehensive walk through on installing OS X Snow Leopard on Windows using iBoot, then installing Vmware (with instructions), then getting your iPhone dev environment going... and a few extra juicy things. Super helpful for me.
Hope that helps. It uses Phonegap so you can develop on multiple smart phone platforms at once.
You can use Tersus (free, open source).
A devkit that allows one to develop iPhone apps in Objective-C, C++ or just plain C with Visual Studio:
Check it out at iOS build env
You can build iPhone apps directly within Visual Studio (2008, 2010, Express).
Pretty neat, it even builds IPA files for your app after a successful compilation. The code works as is on jailbroken devices, for the rest of the planet I believe the final compilation & submission to the App Store has to be done on a Mac. But still, it enables you to develop using a well-known IDE.
Of course, you can write Objective-C code in notepad or other programs and then move it to a Mac to compile.
But seriously, it depends on whether you are developing official applications to put in App Store or developing applications for jailbroken iPhone. To write official applications, Apple iPhone SDK which requires an Intel Mac seems to be the only practical way. However, there is an unofficial toolchain to write applications for jailbroken iPhones. You can run it on Linux and Windows (using Cygwin).
Try macincloud.com It allows you to rent a mac and access it through RDP remote control. You can then use your PC to access a mac and then develop your apps.
You will soon be able to use Adobe Flash CS 5 to create Apps for the iPhone on Windows:
flashcs 5
flashcs5 apps for iphone
Hooray! You can now more easily accomplish this with the latest Xamarin.iOS, using a network-linked mac providing the build and deployment capabilities.
See here for more details:
introduction to xamarin ios for visual studio
If you want it to be legitimate, you have two options, cloud based Mac solutions or cross-platform development tools.
You may consider the hackintosh approach or virtual machines if you don't care about legal stuff. If you have a decent PC, running a virtual machine would be the easiest way to go. You may never know which hardware will have driver issues on a hackintosh.
I've tried all these approaches and they all have pros and cons, but for the second group, I feel kind of guilty. I develop apps to make a living and I wouldn't want to rip off someone else for it.
If you are making a small project, cloud based Macs may prove useful. Rent it for a short time, develop your project and off you go. Don't bother learning anything new.
However, if your project is getting big, cross-platform frameworks seem to be the only alternative. The critical thing is that you need to choose wisely. There are so many hybrid frameworks, but what they do can be summarized in one sentence as "diplaying web pages in an app wrapper" and developers' negative experience with hybrid frameworks also affects native frameworks.
I tried three of these (Titanium, Smartface and Xamarin) and they all claim to produce "real native output" and in my opinion their claims are correct. You need to test and see it yoursrlf, it's not easy to describe the native feeling. In a previous comment, it was indicated that it takes some effort to learn these platforms, but once you get to know them, you can develop not just iOS applications but Android applications as well, all with the common code base. And of course, they are much cheaper than a cloud Mac. Some of them are even free. You would need a Mac only for store submission.
If you know JavaScript, try Titanium and Smartface and if you know C#, try Xamarin. Just note that for the device simuator, Titanium is dependent on a Mac, but Smartface has a simulator app for Windows development and it works better than I expected. On the other hand, Xamarin requires a Mac in your network.
If you want to create iPhone apps but no Mac, then you should try http://www.pmbaty.com/iosbuildenv/
It allows you to easily develop native iOS apps, like with XCode, deployable on any iPhone, iPod or iPad (jailbroken or not).
Use your favourite IDE to code in Objective-C, C++, C or ARM assembly, like in XCode. ARC and blocks are supported.
Compile your iPhone apps directly inside Visual Studio
It works on Windows all versions (XP, 7, 8), FreeBSD and Linux
Now with iOS8 support.
Check out this:
Over view
It is a project that attempts to be able to cross-compile programs written in a variety of source languages to a variety of target languages. One of the initial test cases was to write programs in Java and run them on an iPhone. Watching the video on the site is worthwhile.
With that said, I haven't tried it. The project seems quite beta, and there isn't a lot of activity on their SourceForge site.
You can use Intel XDK with that you can develop and publish app for iOS without mac.
Click here for detail.
Interesting that no one has mentioned the cross-platform wxWidgets option.
It's less than an optimal solution, though.
IMHO, the business-wisest way to go is to invest the money in Apple's endorsed framework. That way, if you find yourself stuck with some mind-boggling problem, you have a much larger community of developers to consult with.
YOU CAN DEVELOP IPHONE APPS ON WINDOWS PC. I've done it, with complex apps. And it works perfectly. You can develop iphone apps without ever seeing a mac or iphone.
You can develop on windows an HTML (or better: HTML5) app, using tools like Sencha or JQTouch, or mobi1. (They used to all be free for a while)
Then you use openSSL to sign the app. And Adobe PhoneGAP Build service to build IPhone App.
But you need the iphone developer licence to install it on an iphone. But you don't need a mac or iphone at any minute to compile, build or test it - all that is done ON THE PC.
I've done it, and it works perfectly. (But with Android type responsiveness - not as fast as a native IPhone app)
You could also use a program from the the Babylonian era (circa 300 bc) running C and C++ called dragonfly. If your app has one or two screens with limited interactivity, and many calculations, go for it. It includes an emulator. You compile to the iphone at the press of a button. (Not sure, but I think you do need a developers license in any case)
And then there is Xamarin. You develop in C# with special calls to native code. You'll have to learn the environment.
Oracle VirtualBox allows users to install Mac OS X in a virtual machine. If you are comfortable with it, you could just use that way to use Xcode. This is legal if you "dual boot" your mac into windows, then install the VirtualBox within windows (or linux).
Other possibilities are cross-compilers such as Appcelerator Titanium (HTML, CSS and JavaScript) or MonoTouch (.NET).
You can use Sentenza for make applications for iPhone, on Windows.
Tested with success.
It's not a solution but a good alternative !
Two other options
Titanium Developer - free community edition - write in HTML/JavaScript - compile with Xcode (requires a Mac or VM)
OpenPlus ELIPS Studio - write in Flex, compile on Xcode (requires a Mac or VM) - they just started charging for their product however.
I think there may be 'toolchain' options for these and some of the others mentioned, which allow you to compile to binary on Windows, and I have seen that you can upload a zip file and have a toolchain style compile done for you online, but this goes against the Apple licensing.
If I am not mistaken, a product such as Titanium that outputs/works with Xcode and does not use any 3rd party / alternative / restricted libraries should be in compliance, because you are ultimately compiling in xcode - normal Objective-C code and libraries.
As has been pointed you can attempt to use the WinChain but if you are a newbie coder it won't be easy.
The iPhone SDK will work on Hackintoshes (a normal PC with OS X installed on it). I know as I have one and it does.
So after you go buy an OSX license you could TRY to install it on your PC on a different drive using Boot-132 or one of the other installers like iDeneb. The issue you will have to do a lot of tinkering and things still won't work quite right.
Using Xamarin now we can develop iPhone applications in Windows machine itself with the help of Xamarin Live Player.
Using this Xamarin live player dev/deploy/debug cycle can now be done without an Apple system.
But to sign and release the app Apple system is required.
Find the reference here
I checked the reference nothing dodgy
Yes and you don't need to learn Objective-C and buying Apple software and hardware.
Adobe have created compilator from ActionScript 3 to program for iOS. And later Apple approved this method of application creation.
This is best way to create Apple applications under Windows or Linux/BSD (and another one for MacOS-X)
If you want to develop an application on Windows environment then there is an option, you can install MAC OS in your windows Platform name is : "Niresh'MAC OS" , you can search that text on Google
then you can download the whole MAC OS Source and easily installed MAC OS in your Windows PC, Niresh is able to Hack the whole OS.
Hope this will help you.
You can install OSX on PC but experience wont be great and it needs lot of work. Alternate is to use a framework/SDK Codename one: which is based on JAVA and can be used to code in WP8, Android, iOS on Windows (eclipse) with all extensive features
Features Overview:
Full Android environment with super fast android simulator
An iPhone/iPad simulator with easy to take iPhone apps to large screen iPad in minutes.
Full support for standard java debugging, profiling for apps on any platform.
Easy themeing / styling – Only a click away
More at Develop Android, iOS iPhone, WP8 apps using Java
Disclaimer: This is my review for the product
Develop iOS Apps on Windows With Cross-Platform Tools
Cross-platform tools are awesome: you code your app once, and export it to iOS and Android. That could potentially cut your app development time and cost in half. Several cross-platform tools allow you to develop iOS apps on a Windows PC, or allow you to compile the app if there’s a Mac in your local network.
Well, not so fast…
The cross-platform tool ecosystem is very large. On the one side you have complete Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) like Xamarin, that allow you to build cross-platform apps with C#.
The middle ground is covered by tools like PhoneGap, Cordova, Ionic and Appcelerator, that let you build native apps with HTML5 components. The far end includes smaller platforms like React Native that allow you to write native apps with a JavaScript wrapper.
The one thing that stands out for all cross-platform tools is this: they’re not beginner friendly! It’s much easier to get access to a Mac, learn Swift, and build a simple app, than it is to get started with Xamarin.
Most of the cross-platform tools require you to have a basic understanding of programming, compilation options, and the iOS and Android ecosystems. That’s something you don’t really have as a beginner developer!
Having said that, let’s look at a couple of options:
If you’re familiar with Windows-based development tools and IDEs, and if you already know how to code, it’s worthwhile to check out Xamarin. With Xamarin you code apps in C#, for multiple platforms, using the Mono and MonoTouch frameworks.
If you’re familiar with web-based development, check out PhoneGap or Ionic. You’ll feel right at home with HTML 5, CSS and JavaScript. Don’t forget: a native app works different than a website…
If you’re familiar with JavaScript, or if you’d rather learn to code JavaScript than Swift, check out React Native. With React Native you can code native apps for iOS and Android using a “wrapper”.
Always deliberately choose for cross-platform tools because it’s a smart option, not because you think a native platform language is bad. The fact that one option isn’t right, doesn’t immediately make another option smarter!
If you don’t want to join the proprietary closed Apple universe, don’t forget that many cross-platform tools are operated by equally evil companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Adobe and Amazon.
An often heard argument against cross-platform tools is that they offer limited access to and support for smartphone hardware, and are less “snappy” than their native counterparts. Keep in mind that any cross-platform tool will require you to write platform-specific code at one point, especially if you want to code custom features.
If you have ssh access to a Mac, then you can use a VNC (like Vine VNC, which allows multiple uses at once - thin thin client) to control XCode.
This could be useful if you wanted to access a Mac Mini from a laptop, or your S.O. is hogging your MacBook.
You may try to develop web apps for iPhone using HTML, JavaScript, CSS. Check the getting started info at Apple's site.