I want to test my web application in iPhone Emulator but I have only Windows Machine there is any way to create iPhone emulators on Windows for testing web applications using Appium.
There is a way if you create a Virtual Machine of MAC OS. But you still need a valid MAC OS license (there is no freeware except some hacked ones).
Basically you need XCode application to run iOS emulators, which can be installed only on MAC OS.
I was reading some sort of article stating you need Mac OS X to develop iPhone apps.
Is there really such a restriction?
Can't you just download the SDK (and the iOS developer program) IDE to Windows?
Yes, you do need Mac OS X for that. Xcode (SDK) will only work on Mac OS X.
However, if the legal part for you is not really important you can install Mac OS X on your normal PC. Just google "Hackintosh".
You don't need an actual Mac, just Mac OSX. If you don't feel like buying a mac than you can get a hold of the image of Mac OSX and install it onto your PC using Virtual Machine software. I use VMWare to run MacOSX from my Windows 7 x64 machine. VM's are a great way to go, the driers can take a bit to setup, but once everything is working it's perfect. VM's even support ethernet so from within the VM you can browse the web, download mac apps. Install things like XCode or GameSalad. I suggest researching how to use Virtual Machines.
One near-solution is to run OS X in a Virtual Machine on a Windows platform.
You're then developing on XCode on OS X, in a VM on Windows.
This way, you don't have to buy a Mac, or dedicate the hardware to a "Hackintosh".
Of course, this may not be legal by the license terms; I'm only speaking about the technical possibility.
You absolutely need Intel Macintosh hardware to develop iOS apps. The iOS SDK requires Xcode and Xcode only runs on Macintosh machines. I think that any Intel Mac will work, but with how fast things are changing a newer machine will get you longer time before you are forced to upgrade the machine.
Nope, you need an Intel-based Mac to develop apps for iOS. There is no iOS SDK for Windows.
That being said, there might be a way to use something like PhoneGap to develop your app "elsewhere" and then create a suitable package for iOS as well as other mobile platform. I am not familiar enough with PhoneGap and similar tools to know about this angle with any more certainty though.
You can't, there is no iOS SDK for Windows, it only has a Mac version. However, there are various emulators for Mac out there that you can try to install onto Windows. I've tried this before and it did work, however the performance was really poor. If you really wanted to do iOS development. I would strongly suggest you to actually purchase a Mac.
One year later...
I am not familiar with the prerequisites for developing native iOS apps, but wanted to add the possibility of creating a hybrid mobile application. Usually even then one needs the native tools and SDKs for building the wrapper application. But PhoneGap provide a cloud-based build service, which seems to do the job:
"What about developer accounts and SDKs? Do I need to set those up
before starting with PhoneGap Build?
No! But you might want to install some of the SDK emulators if you
don’t own a particular device that you want to test a build for."
Source: PhoneGap Build service
I have not tested the service myself. Just wanted to give an additional path to consider.
To be clear for iPhone apps development required Mac Computers. Xcode and iOS SDK to lead through the app development.Objective-C is the programming language which is most required for iOS app development to build apps. And to be frank, there is a difference between iOS and OS X. iOS and OS X share more framework. So porting app works from OS X to iOS is possible with a little work. If you are a cocoa developer you would be adapt to these frameworks easier.
Check for more information: developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Miscellaneous/Conceptual/iPhoneOSTechOverview/Introduction/Introduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007898
You can just install MacOS X on windows platform with the help of VMWare which you can use both of operating systems simultaneously side by side.
If you try develop iOS app with cordova like tools, you can simply build with the required SDK and compile it as iOS app then test it on your iPhone or any virtual emulators.
So this is an old question but also the first to appear for me in Google and I finally found a legal way. In 2020 you can go with MacInCloud, costs one dollar an hour for a basic plan. You can code everything elsewhere and then just use the cloud service to deploy the final steps in Xcode. Don't know about installing on your own ipad for testing, haven't gotten there yet.
Yes, you´re gonna need a MacBook or alike to develop for iOS. In my opinion, one of the biggest problems of developing apps for iOS is that you regularly have to buy a new MacBook (or another Mac based technology computer), since over time the most current version available of xCode for your already recently outdated OS X becomes incompatible with the newest iOS.
I am using an application that produce me the xcode project that I have implemented on windows. So in order to test it on iphone i have to use a mac. I am wondering is there any way to compile and sign the xcode project so I can get *.ipa or *.app.
Thanks.
I suggest that you install VirtualBox which enables you to run Mac OS X. Buying a Mac OS X license is rather cheap and VirtualBox is free. If you register at Apple Developer you could download Xcode for free. I have successfully used VirtualBox to setup similar environments, where I used Ubuntu as the host operating system.
The following might be of interest: Develop iPhone applications on Windows (with Virtualbox etc).
No, it is illegal and is only allowed on licensed Mac OS X software.
Is it possible to use VirtualBox (https://www.virtualbox.org) to compile an iPhone app on a Windows 7 machine?
Specifically, we would like to utilize PhoneGap (http://www.phonegap.com) or Titanium (http://www.appcelerator.com/) to build the iPhone app.
PhoneGap requires Mac OS X Snow Leopard, which we would install on an instance of VirtualBox.
Has anyone done this before?
Yes, we understand this violates Apple's ToS. This is a prototype.
I would recommend looking into PhoneGap Build https://build.phonegap.com/
PhoneGap Build allows you to upload your source to their build service and get back app-store ready packages for a variety of platforms.
As far as I can tell, the only thing you need a Mac for in this process is to set up your provisioning profiles and developer certificate. Then you upload those to PhoneGap's service. From there it seems you should be able to use a non-Apple computer to develop and upload to the service.
My question is very simple:
Is there any solution to install xCode, or equivalent, under unix OS, like ubuntu ?
Indeed, i don't want to buy an expensive macbook to develop my private iPhone applications.
The iPhone SDK requires Mac OS, and you need to install the SDK even if you plan to develop applications with, say, MonoTouch or Corona.
I don't know if Mac OS can be run as a virtual machine inside Linux. Anyway, you may consider buying a Mac Mini. It is not very expensive and powerful enough for software development.
The OSX86 project might solve your problem. It's not as convenient as buying a cheap Mac, but you can install it on a regular PC and it seems there are ways to install XCode on it.
If you end up buying a Mac, be sure to look at the specs for IPhone development first. If I remember correctly, you need a mac based on an x86 core (such as the Mac Mini) to develop IPhone software.
xCode without Mac OS is definitely not possible. The real question here is, wether it's possible to install the complete Mac operating system in a virtual environment or not.
Last Saturday I tested a very nice soft called... VMware !
So is it possible to install mac OSX leopard on this kind of virtual machine ?
As far as I know iPhone development under unix is only possible if you jailbreak your iPhone. Which I would not recommend. You could try to buy a used Intel mac mini to develop for the iPhone.
Martin,
I am doing some apps development for an iPhone and I have a Windows 7. You can install VMWare and install the Mac OS 10.6 through this and load xCode from Mac. The key is in finding the correct place to download VMWare and Mac OS.
Good Luck.