How can I develop for iPhone using a Windows development machine

Question

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

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As many people already answered  iPhone SDK is available only for OS X  and I believe Apple will never release it for Windows  But there are several alternative environments frameworks that allow you to develop iOS applications  even package and submit to AppStore using windows machine as well as MAC  Here are most popular and relatively better options   PhoneGap  allow to create web-based apps  using HTML CSS JavaScript  Xamarin  cross-platform apps in C    Adobe AIR  air applications with Flash   ActionScript  Unity3D  cross-platform game engine  Note  Unity requires Xcode  and therefore OS X to build iOS projects

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You can use Sentenza for make applications for iPhone  on Windows  Tested with success  It s not a solution but a good alternative

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Check out NS Basic App Studio  It s Visual Basic for the iPhone   though you can also code in JavaScript   It produces WebApps which can be distributed without going through the App Store  Apps will also run on other platforms  like Android    NS Basic App Studio

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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

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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

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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

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This is a new tool  oxygene which you can use to build apps for iOS Mac   Windows RT 8 or Android  It uses a specific language derived from Object Pascal and Visual Studio  and uses  net or java    It seem to be really powerful  but is not free

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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   You can find lots of articles on how to do this  here s one on how to install on a Dell Inspirion 1525 laptop  hackbook pro tutorial  Of course both of these options are likely counter to some licensing scheme  so proceed at your own risk

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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B4i is a new development tool that creates native iOS apps  It runs on Windows  When a full compilation is required  in most cases it is not required  the project is compiled on a hosted builder  Each compilation takes about 5 seconds  B4i

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I use Flutter  I develop on my Windows machine and test on an Android emulator  When I m ready to test on iOS  I run the code on macOS  From my experience  a Flutter app runs exactly the same on Android and iOS  If you don t have a Mac  you can download VirtualBox and install macOS on it  On VirtualBox  macOS runs exactly as it does on a real Mac  and you can build your app on it

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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

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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

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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

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You can use Tersus  free  open source

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accurate as of late 2014   For access to the native tools  Xcode etc  there are two main options   1  Virtual machine  Look around for the mavericks  10 9  vmware image that works with a modified Vmware Workstation Player  Once the machine is able to boot  it can be updated to 10 9 5 with no apparent issues    The good  relatively low learning curve  if you are somewhat familiar with vms   The bad  reduced performance due to virtualized environment  no 3d acceleration  QE CL   2  Hackintosh  This is the sensible option if you are planning to procure new hardware  or at least partly   instead of retrofitting existing equipment  but you might be lucky to have one of the common OEM models  like Dell  that already have recipes written for it   The good  no penalty on hardware performance  which might even surpass that of a real mac  The same hardware can also be used for other OSes if you are open to multibooting   The bad  higher learning curve  more hardware limitations  no drivers for certain Intel wifi etc  which may translate into higher investment if you had no intention to get new hardware originally  Needless to say  both options above are frown upon by the fruit company  so licensing compliance is not part of the discussion    3  An actual mac  added in 2016   This option is perfect for people who already have a mac and use it as a Windows development machine via Bootcamp etc  This also has the least support issues  apart from complications that may result from multi-booting   so it is recommended for those looking for a long-term solution  hardware that works not just for the current OSX version but future versions as well

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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

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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 Delphi XE4 and the macincloud service  This is a commercial toolset  but the component and lib support is growing    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

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There s also Sencha Architect and Sencha Touch from the company that makes Ext JS

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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

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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

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You may try to develop web apps for iPhone using HTML  JavaScript  CSS  Check the getting started info at Apple s site

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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

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Please take a look at Xamarin  They have an extension for Visual Studio  http   xamarin com visual-studio    Taken from their site      Xamarin provides Visual Studio add-ins so that you can develop your iOS  Android and Windows apps all in a single solution  The Xamarin extensions support building  deploying  and debugging on simulator or device

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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

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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  amp  submission to the App Store has to be done on a Mac  But still  it enables you to develop using a well-known IDE

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You can use Intel XDK with that you can develop and publish app for iOS without mac   Click here for detail

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Visual Studio   Xamarin will do the job     Yet  I d recommend you get a Mac and develop iOS apps in Xcode      When in Rome  live like the Romans do

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So the bad news is that XCode is needed for its iOS Simulator as well as its Application Loader facility for actually uploading the programs to iOS devices for  real  testing  You ll need XCode for signing your apps before submitting to the App Store  Unfortunately  XCode is only available for OS X   However  the good news is that you may be able to purchase OS X and run it in a virtual machine such as VMWare Workstation  I don t know how straightforward this is  as it is rather difficult to get OS X to run on non-Apple hardware  but a quick Google search shows that it is possible  This method would  likely  be cheaper than purchasing a new Mac  although the Mac Mini retails in the US for only  599  Some posts I ve seen indicate that this may or may not be legal  others say you need OS X Server for virtualization  I ll leave the research up to you   There are also services such as MacInCloud that allow you to rent a Mac server that you can access from Windows via remote desktop  or through your browser  Unfortunately  I don t think you d be able to use Application Loader  as you have to physically connect the device to your computer  but it would work for development and simulation  at least   Good luck

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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

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