How do I convert a .ipa file to a .deb file?
Your question makes very little sense, since .IPA is the extension for an application installed on the i(Phone|Pad|Pod), where as .DEB is the extension for a package for the Linux operating system Debian.
Based on your comments, the answer is: you pay the $99/year to Apple, and you can then deploy things to your own iPhone (there are plenty of docs out there on this), or you Jailbreak your iPhone, and in that case, I'm not sure how app deployment works, but I'm sure there are docs out there for that too.
It is unfortunate that Apple has chosen to require payment for people to tinker with their own devices, but I guess that's why there are some many people Jailbreaking there devices.
Correction to the previous answer:
Your question makes perfect sense
iOS (and Mac OS) are based on linux. Sometimes, when downloading apps for a jailbroken iphone onto your PC, these files will be have a deb extension because of this.
try this page for a couple of methods:
http://xsellize.com/topic/32674-converting-cydia-applications-to-ipa-format/
If someone wants to convert an ipa to deb I am 90% sure it is because they are not able to perform sideloading (e.g. I failed with ideviceinstaller), and they want to install the package with Cydia without the need of sideloading.
Tools:
rullinoiz/ipa2deb
Un1Gfn-obj/ios/ipa2deb.sh - written by me based on the previous one
alamshafil/ipa2deb - C# - Windows - GUI - I haven't tried it
TL;DR of how they work:
Create a DEBIAN/control and fill in some package info
Unpack ipa to a directory (ipa is kinda equivalent to zip)
Repack the directory with dpkg -b or dpkg-deb
Related
I want to know how to install an ipa/app file into iPhone just using the command line?
The device maybe without jailbreak or jailbroken already.
I tried to use the command line: xcodebuild, but failed. I didn't find the parameter how to set the destination, maybe a real device, not a simulator.
What options do I have?
Three ways I know of:
These guys wrote a tool in Ruby to do it. It uses the Fruitstrap library which in turn uses one of Apple's private APIs, so this could possibly break in the future.
You can also just use Fruitstrap on its own, but then you need an .app directory, whereas the Transporter Chief tool I linked above supports both .app and .ipa deployments (as required in your answer).
In either case, you need to have XCode installed for it to work, but the device does not need to be jailbroken.
Thirdly, there is also a binary distribution for OS X of the libimobiledevice library, which enables Linux boxes to talk to iOS devices. This has a few different tools, one of which can install valid signed IPAs to the device using this syntax:
ideviceinstaller -i myapp.ipa
The advantage of this method is that it does not need XCode or even iTunes.
With the new Apple Configurator 2 application, you can Install Automation Tools... from the menu. This will add support for the command-line tool "cfgutil".
cfgutil allows you to install ipa's from the command-line using cfgutil install-app <AbsolutePathToIpa>. We use it on our build server to automatically update the device with the latest build.
I've just gathered in a single post (Gist) how to achieve this, using
1.- Mattt's library Shenzhen
2.- Phonegap's library ios-deploy
Read here:
How to generate and install an IPA file
I've tried libimobiledevice-macosx. works fine on iPhone 5. iOS version 6.1.4.
I was able to install app and see log output like in xcode :) Thank you!
Is it possible to download and install raw .app files onto the iPhone simulator. I like the functionality of some apps but simply do not have an iPhone. Would it be possible to download the app files and install them onto the simulator?
No. Release builds target ARM processors. The simulator doesn't emulate the CPU, that's why you have to build for it specifically - simulator builds are x86.
Do you mean with the IPA file? Unfortunately with Ad Hoc releases you need to install the provisioning profile that AFAIK won't allow you to install. There may be a hack but without hacking it there is no way to do so.
If the developer is built for simulator arch, then you can run it. By placing the .app file in the following location.
/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/SDKs/iPhoneSimulator.sdk/Applications/
Note: make sure your restarting the simulator to take effect.
I need to allow an iPad to quickly install an IPA saved on a local network. The solution I am using today is pretty cumbersome:
Create IPA
Uninstall previous version from iPad
Restart iTunes, if running
Drag new IPA over to iTunes
Sync
Populate the documents folder of the app with large test files which was deleted because of uninstall.
I tried several other ways, including the obvious just drag over the new IPA directly to iTunes without uninstalling it first, but the updated IPA is just ignored.
(Also, I cannot install over a cable from Monodevelop directly, as I am on a Windows machine and the remote controlled Mac doing the actually compilation is not physically anywhere near me. We also have other testers who need to install the IPA as well.)
Is there a faster way to do this? I am doing frequent benchmarks of my app, and this long testing cycle is seriously slowing everything down.
If you are using iOS 4+, you can accomplish this with wireless distribution:
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/featuredarticles/FA_Wireless_Enterprise_App_Distribution/Introduction/Introduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009979-CH1-SW2
If you don't want to use PHP you can have a look at my shell script that will help you generate all the necessary .plist files and links:
https://github.com/sveinungkb/ios-ota-buddy
Having already upgraded from Mac OS X 10.5 to 10.6, I really don't want to push my luck upgrading to 10.7. So when the time comes I am looking to do a clean install. Please keep in mind that I am a relative newbie to Mac OS and so far every thing has, well, "just worked". That being said ...
What should an iOS developer backup prior to doing a clean install of Lion?
Thanks in advance,
Mike
Export any developer or distribution certificates from Keychain Access that you do not want to recreate.
If you've been good about checking everything (including artwork, your own documentation, snippets, etc.) into an external source code control repository (and have tested this by building from a clean checkout into an empty directory), then all you really need to continue iOS development on any new or different Mac are your logins, certificates and private keys. Just re-download the SDK appropriate for the Mac OS you are running.
But there might be a whole bunch of other stuff on your Mac in your User account that you might want to backup (iOS backups, music, photos, documents, etc., etc.)
I have come across some of the jailbroken applications which use package files named with the extension .deb . So how it is related to iPhone and how it is different from .app .
.deb is a package management format used on Debian-based Linux distributions. Ubuntu, for example, uses .deb files to manage installation of software.
.deb files are not specific to Debian though and can be used on any compatible *nix platform. fink for Mac OS X is .deb-based, I believe.
So, to answer one half of your question, .deb files are used to install certain jailbroken applications into your iPhone.
.app files, on the other hand, are Apple's format for assembled applications. They contain everything you need to run them.
The main difference is that with .app files, that is the actual application itself. With .deb files, it contains the instructions for how to install the application.
Hope this helps.
.deb