I am about to embark on some mobile development projects but I'm doing a little homework first. My primary goal is to deploy to Android and iOS, but the latter is posing some problems because I do not have access to (nor do I have any interested in acquiring) a Mac.
Phonegap offers a cloud service where you can upload your mobile development project and they will do the building for you - no Mac required. From the Phonegap Build FAQ:
Simply upload your web assets - a ZIP file of HTML, CSS and
JavaScript, or a single index.html file - to PhoneGap Build, point us
to your Git or SVN repository, or let us set up a git remote endpoint
that you can push to. Then we’ll undertake the compilation and
packaging for you. In minutes, you’ll receive the download URLs for
all mobile platforms.
I am leaning toward the development and native UI capabilities of Appcelerator, but since I do not have a Mac, is there any hope for me using Titanium for iOS development using something akin to PhoneGap's Build service?
If you dont have a Mac you will not be able to develop, test, deploy, or put in the app store applications for iOS, with or without using Titanium.
Regardless, even if you were able to use a cloud build technology with Titanium (which does not exist) you wont be able to deploy your final application to the App Store because you have to have XCode for that, the same goes for PhoneGap. Check this here:
Note: Since PhoneGap Build uses Apple's standard development process to build applications, >you will need to sign up for their developer program to build iOS applications on PhoneGap >Build. You will also need a Mac to configure your certificate and provisioning profile.
Bottom line, unless you use a mac, your not legally deploying to the App Store.
Don't be forgetting the registration fees that come with signing up as Both a google play & iOS developer.
I fear that using a remote service is going to cost you dearly in time, as you'll be significantly increasing your test cycle.
The cost of a second hand Mac mini is hardly going to impact any development budget, even charity work. And as the previous poster note, you can't legally deploy your completed build without a mac. If you made macs, wouldn't you do the same?
There are services cropping up like Mobundler.com and Foundry22.com which let you do end to end development without a Mac.
Foundry22 is a service similar to PhoneGap build, for Titanium SDK. Similar to PhoneGap build, it requires p12 bundle for iOS signing and Java keystore for Android. You can use service like Mobundler to create those using just your browser. You still need to pay to become part of iOS developer program.
The answer here is outdated.
There is an Icenium platform which will allow you to build and put your app on App Store without using Mac at all.
http://docs.icenium.com/publishing-your-app/distribute-production/publish-ios
Related
Hi so I made a basic flutter app on android studio on my windows system. How can I set it up so that my friend can download the app from a link and just keep it on her phone and open it whenever on her IOS device? I do have access to a Mac but no developer account. What's the easiest way I can do this?
Sadly there is no easy way for this.
For the "easiest" way to share an iPhone-build you need to build from a Mac itself (via XCode). You can upload and share internal builds of your app for download via Testflight, but that does require a developer-license.
Yes, there are alternatives, like building via a server and automating uploads, but those require considerably more knowledge, time & other tools to accomplish.
I am new to mobile development, working on my first app for both iOS and Android. I was under the impression that I can develop it through Ionic once (on my Linux system) and deploy it for both, but recently found out I need to develop on a Mac for iOS?
Like this guy said to someone equally unimpressed:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/38117802/8494414
Also stated here:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/40779188/8494414
My question is, at which stage do I need a Mac? Can I do all the development on my system and then just deploy with a Mac? Did I need to do something special from the get-go to support iOS? I am already rather deep in the process, but should I be considering a different framework?
I do find it strange that this knowledge doesn't seem very explicitly available.
Thank you for any help!
If you want to do a build for the iOS platform you will always need a macOS based operating system with xcode installed at some point. You can do all the coding on your linux machine as the hybrid part will be the same for all platforms. But if you want to test or deploy the iOS version of your app you will need either a mac or you will have to use some third party service where you can upload your sourcecode and you get a ready for install .ipa back. Ionic itself offers a service like that: see Ionic Package Service
As joshmorony said on his blog:
In order to compile an iOS application using Cordova, you need the iOS
SDK, which is only possible if you have a Mac and XCode. This is not
an issue for Android because the Android SDK can be installed on both
Windows and Mac. If you are not using a Mac, you simply can not create
iOS builds.
you can also use some virtual machines but they can be illegal and I don't recommend them
I successfully built my app for Android, but naturally things are not that simple for IOS for a windows user.
This question has been asked many times before in many places at different times in different versions, but I'm interested to see if there's any up-to-date info on the issue.
Here's an old topic with a variety of answers: https://forum.ionicframework.com/t/how-to-build-app-for-iphone-without-mac/19929/19
I'm using ionic 3 and I'd like to build for the latest IOS, My PC OS is Windows 10.
Does Ionic provide any way to make this process easier?
I understood that in the latest IOS an apple dev account is no longer a requirement for testing. How do I test without one? (perhaps it's possible only when using a MAC?)
How do I use PhoneGap Build with Ionic?
https://build.phonegap.com/apps
It requires apple app certificate and keys to build.
Am I supposed to manually create a config.xml? https://github.com/phonegap/phonegap-template-hello-world/blob/master/www/config.xml
I use windows to develop Ionic. In order to build for IOS I have installed VMWare on which I emulate MacOS X, installed xcode and all the tools necessary for building ionic. I have been able to test and deploy my apps to an ios device through usb with ionic/xcode. However I haven't push any apps to the app store yet. If you want to get started into this, take a look at this link.
After doing some research I found out that ionic has a cloud packaging service.
https://ionicframework.com/pro/package (previously https://docs.ionic.io/services/package/ [link dead])
Some cross compilation frameworks like Adobe Air, Marmalade sdk, Trigger.io and Embarcadero allow one to build test and debug applications from a windows machine. Do they violate the iOS SDK license agreement? This agrement forbids to distribute derivative work of the SDK which is the certainly the case with the above mentioned products. Is it safe to use this products for development or is there a concrete danger that Apple will retire any app developed with these solutions?
I can comment on the trigger.io side of things..
My understanding of things is that the forge build process is acting much like testflightapp, just without the download / install process.
You never actually download / use the apple SDK so its hard to say if you are violating something that you are not using directly.
Forge, just like all build services, has a build server. The build server contains the IOS SDK for packaging. As long as your certs and provisioning files are correct it will package it up just fine. The forge process simply installs it after the fact, again similar to testflightapp.
As for apple knowing you tested in a specific manor.. I don't know how they could even know because the end package is just an ipa file, you still have to submit via a mac.
I have an incredibly basic Adobe AIR 4.5 desktop project that I just want to use to test an iOS deployment. Is it at all possible to deploy this to an iOS device as it is? Or does it need to be turned into a Mobile project somehow?
The steps to creating an IPA file in the guide on Adobe's site (http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/articles/packaging-air-apps-ios.html) seem to assume the project is already a mobile project. I'm a total newb here, but it sounds like this sort of thing is possible? Is it really? I'm having trouble finding information.
It is possible to create a simple Flash project and export it without modification for iOS. Obviously depending on what the project is doing, some things might need to be tweaked.
I am currently building several apps using the same fla and as files, which are targetted for browser and iOS use.
But in order to place anything onto an iDevice, be it just for debugging, testing or adHoc distribution, you need to be signed up to the Apple Development program, have an Apple provisioning certificate in place and have relevant apple provisioning profiles created.
There is a great course on lynda.com about setting yourself up for iDevice app building.
http://www.lynda.com/iOS-SDK-4-tutorials/distributing-ios-applications-through-the-app-store/77853-2.html?srchtrk=index%3A7%0Alinktypeid%3A2%0Aq%3Aios%0Apage%3A1%0As%3Arelevance%0Asa%3Atrue%0Aproducttypeid%3A2