I am tasked to provide an IPhone client app for our SaaS website. I have never written an IPhone application, nor do I have an IPhone at the moment. Before I can decide whether or not I want to do this myself or outsource this, I'd like to try a few apps myself to get a feeling for the UI.
Is there any IPhone emulator I might use to download and run apps from the App Store? I do have an Intel-based Mac if that helps.
No, this isn't possible. The first major hurdle is that the apps from the app store are compiled for the ARM processor, and your Mac is x86.
The only thing you can do is compile projects from source. Luckily, Apple has many sample projects which demonstrate various features, including the UI widgets.
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I don't have an Apple computer, I just have an iPhone and some knowledge about language development. I want to create my own app for my own use, just for fun! I don't want to pay Apple for a developer account. I just want to develop my app and put it on my iPhone. I can either develop on Linux or Windows. How can I do that?
If you want to develop on an actual iPhone, you'll need a developer licence. To developer apps natively you will need a Mac running XCode.
There's lots of HTML5 libraries for making apps using javascript though. Maybe try out Phonegap or GameSalad
At the minimum you'll need to have OSX (Mac Operating system) to run Xcode/iphone emulator, you wont be able to do this without OSX.
EDIT:
You may be able to develop it using phone gap: http://phonegap.com/
You'll have to do testing on an adriod emulator, but I believe phonegap builds the app in the cloud. Good luck.
You can develop an app using adobe AIR or adobe Flash. Check out FlashDevelop for a free solution for making flash and air apps for everything from windows to android to iOS.
For a somewhat detailed tutorial on how to actually export an AIR project from FlashDevelop so you can install it on an iOS device, see:
http://www.codeandvisual.com/2011/exporting-for-iphone-using-air-27-and-flashdevelop-part-one-installation/
and FYI, this is not JUST for jailbroken iOS devices! :D
Native iOS applications can only be built in Xcode (which can only run on a Mac), and you need a developer membership to deploy those on an actual device (which costs about $100 a year). So, that’s the caveat: You can’t make native apps.
However, native apps aren’t the only option! There are two other approaches.
One way is to make a web app. These days, web apps can do almost everything that a native app can do (even access the camera). Unless you’re building something specialized (like a video editor, for example, or a game that needs to work with Bluetooth game controllers), you can probably make something as a web app. Years ago, I wasn’t happy with the flashcard apps on the market and wanted something custom but super simple to help me study JLPT vocabulary. At the time, I also didn’t have the money for a developer membership. I made it as a web app, and it worked great!
If you’re making a web app, you’ll need someplace to host it. There are lots of options. For example, the free tier on Firebase is plenty for a personal-use web app. You also might want to consider building the app using client-side scripting (like Javascript) so that you can host it statically, which will allow you to tell iOS to cache it so you can utilize it offline (Google “HTML offline manifest” for details).
The other way, if you have a friend with a developer account, is to build your app using a cross-platform framework like Flutter, where you don’t need a Mac to develop and test it, then ask your friend to make it for you. You’ll need to rebuild periodically (I think once a year) because your provisioning profile will expire.
If you use a framework like Flutter that can build both native AND web apps, that gives you the ability to run natively (if you have access to a Mac) or host it statically on someplace like Firebase Hosting (if you don’t).
I'm using MobiOne to build an App (I don't have a Mac or know Obj-C), but I'm wondering how to compile the App into Obj-C. Has anyone tried this? I have my design done and tested in the emulator, but do not see how to build the code.
My understanding is that MobiOne is not designed to be uploaded to Apple's app store. You can use Phone Gap to help get your app into a native environment since MobiOne uses web technologies. Phone Gap should allow you to publish to the app store, but the app is still subject to Apple's quality control system.
EDIT: You will still need a mac to publish the app. Or you can just use the app as a website on your device(s).
You can build the app with the Mobione built-in compiler. Go to the "Project" menu and click "Build iOS app" and your app will be compiled. You cannot compile with Obj-C.
Compile it into an iOS native app using Mobione on Windows. Upload it to the App Store using Apple's Application Uploader on a Mac. Easy.
According to Apple, you are not supposed to make iPhone apps without a mac. Also learning objective c MIGHT just be a good first start before making an app.
The first comment in your question provides a link, and one of the first paragraphs in that link states this:
"The traditional approach to iOS application development requires developers to create their apps using Apple’s Objective-C programming tools and Macintosh(tm) hardware. MobiOne runs on your Windows OS (Win7 to XP) hardware and offers developers an alternative cross-platform programming model based on HTML5 open web standards and virtual device services, e.g., contacts, camera, audio... "
Of course this allows you to do it, but that doesn't mean that the appstore will accept your app if you try and submit it through MobiOne. I'm not too sure on the subject, but I would do some research and figure out if apple allows you to do this.
As I've seen many questions related to this topic but this is a completely different question. I wanted to ask if there is any header file or anything else which will help me to program iPhone Application on Windows using Visual C++ 2008 and then test it on my phone (and not really make it open to the real market) ?
Unfortunately there isn't any way to develop native iphone applications on Windows. OS X is required to develop iOS applications.
There are third party tools, such as Corona, and Monotouch, which will allow you to write you application in languages other than objective-C, but in order to test in the simulator or on a physical device, you again need OS X, and the iOS SDK, which require Apple hardware (you can attempt to use a hacked PC to run OS X, but it's not without it's own issues).
With Airplay SDK, it is possible to use Visual Studio and C++ for iPhone development. It allows deployment to device on Windows. However to create properly signed apps for AppStore submission, OS X is required.
Since Airplay SDK is a multi-platform development environment focusing on games, it is not intended for applications using iPhone API's directly. So when using it, developer is actually writing Airplay application that just happens to work on iPhone too. For something like games using OpenGL ES written in C++ this is not a problem. But "productivity" applications using native iPhone UI components are out of question with Airplay SDK.
Where could someone get the code or guidelines to create a universal pedometer app for various phones?
or would you have to create a different app for each phone?
or could you just create an app for android & iphone?
How would a coder go about doing the task? where to look for help?
Titanium Mobile is a cross-platform dev environment that lets you write apps in javascript that are then compiled into native apps for iPhone/iPad and Android. I haven't used it myself, but I've heard that it does not completely suck. I do not know whether it supports the accelerometers in these devices (which would be necessary for a pedometer app), but it probably does.
However, since you'd have to learn a bunch of new stuff just to use Titanium, it might make more sense to just pick a platform and spend your time learning to program it natively (Android has more marketshare now - maybe - so I'd recommend just learning that; Android is much easier to work with than iPhone).
Titanium Mobile does support Accelerometer.
For iPhone, there is an offical library in the framework that will detect steps, but it will only work from iOS7.
Look here: /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreMotion.framework
Please be aware there are restrictions for what kind of Apps can run in the background on an iPhone.
I'm only after a simple solution and won't be developing anything particularly complex. But I'm wondering whether the hassals of developing an iPhone app NOT on MacOS are really that significant to avoid giving it a shot. Bearing in mind that I do have access to a mac every now and again. So I would be able to compile it using the official Apple supported SDK, but I just want to be able to develop it in my own environment (windows laptop).
I heard someone mention a while ago that there are various objective C compilers that allow writing code in various other web technologies as well. Are these really valid.
And am I alone in thinking Apple's whole attitude towards this is totally imoral. Charging $200 for the privelege of having your app unequivocally rejected etc etc and then not being allowed to look directly at Steve Jobs or his golden retrievers.
It depends on what sort of app you're developing - web app, or native iphone app. There are benefits and drawbacks to both.
You can make (and host) an iphone web app on any platform, and write it in pretty much any language. There are projects like iui to make your web app look more like an iphone app. You also don't have to pay to get into the iPhone developer program, but your app isn't available through the app store - it's just a web site. In the newest version of the iPhone OS you can bookmark a site to your site to the "desktop" - making it possible to launch your web app just like any other iPhone app.
If you're making a native iPhone app, again, it depends what sort of app you're making. If it's a game, you can develop it in C (ObjectiveC is a superset of C) and OpenGL ES, and just make a thin ObjectiveC iPhone app wrapper to launch your game. If you're making a "regular" iPhone app with widgets, etc. this is very difficult (if not impossible) without developing on a Mac - in addition to ObjectiveC you'll need the Mac and iPhone libraries - things like Cocoa, etc. that just aren't available on any other platform.
There are also some cross-compiler options here too - MonoTouch for Mono/.NET, Flash cross-compiling and probably more. You'd still need a Mac / iPhone developer account to ultimately test the result in iPhone simulators or on an actual device.
As for how 'imoral' this is of Apple/Steve Jobs - it's the difference between a closed platform and an open platform - some video game systems are also closed platforms also and you pay for the privilege of developing an app for them - and they have the option to censor / prohibit your app/game from their platform. The iPhone is just the most current and popular version of this. If you don't like it - develop an Android app instead :)
If you don't want to work on a Mac, you should look into developing a web-application for iPhone.
A) You can develop it on your pc
B) You can test everything on your iPod or iPhone
C) No, review by Apple