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I could write the app in HTML/CSS/JavaScript and use something like phoneGap but is this technique recommended? Isn't it better to write the app in Objective-C?

Jason Coco
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Ramya
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  • Well sure it is better to write in Objective C, but if you don't have a Macintosh, it's not easy at all. [Here is a related question that might help you out](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/113547/iphone-development-on-windows). – Michael Dautermann Apr 19 '12 at 21:51
  • i might be completly wrong but I can recall reading something about mono, c# and objc – chikuba Apr 19 '12 at 21:53
  • you can try to setup a hackintosh on you windows machine.. (if you want to develop natively and at least with the original iphone simulator) – calimarkus Apr 19 '12 at 22:01

3 Answers3

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For a native app [objective C] i have tried with a Hackintosh on a real machine and virtual machine

is possible but illegal for apple, and difficult as sometimes you hit some walls. That takes some time to solve.

The easiest option is to buy a second hand mac [from $400? for a desktop or less for an old laptop], and start from there,

as there are lots of signing involved in your app development. And depending on your experience is better to have them "automated" for you.

So even to develop your app on HTML+JS [phone gap etc], as a wrapper you will need to deal with xcode and objC

Good luck!

manuelBetancurt
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If you want to do an app, and not just build a website that can be accessed via the browser, your best bet would be to use a product like Adobe Flash Builder or Delphi Prism which will allow you to code in a cross platform way, but compile into native ios bytecode. The big problem with this approach as I see it is native access to the phones hardware (like GPS, etc)., and debugging. Since there isn't a good emulator to use to test off of.

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adc-presents/build-ios-applications-using-flex-and-flash-builder-45/

http://www.embarcadero.com/rad-in-action/iphone

javram
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The reason phone gap is not as good as Objective-C is because it doesn't have a native look/feel. If this doesn't matter to you then phonegap should be fine.

If you decide you don't care about native look/feel then you can build your phone gap application on a windows machine and then compile it via a website like this. When I used phonegap for iOS development there were a few bugs that showed up when compiled with Xcode that didn't when compiled otherwise, so you might have to do some debugging on a mac anyway.

N_A
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