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Possible Duplicate:
Starting iPhone app development in Linux?

Is there a way to use Ubuntu Linux for developing iPhone applications destined to be listed on Apples app store ?

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joebert
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    related http://stackoverflow.com/questions/276907/starting-iphone-app-development-in-linux – jfs Dec 22 '10 at 20:14

9 Answers9

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Many of the other solutions will work, but they all make use of the open-toolchain for the iPhone SDK. So, yes, you can write software for the iPhone on other platforms... BUT...

Since you specify that you want your app to end up on the App Store, then, no, there's not really any way to do this. There's certainly no time effective way to do this. Even if you only value your own time at $20/hr, it will be far more efficient to buy a used intel Mac, and download the free SDK.

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mmc
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Not officially, no. It's just Objective-C though and the compiler's open source - you could probably get the headers and compile it and somehow get the binary on the device. Another option is compiling on the device. All these options will require jailbreaking though.
A Mac Mini is just $599...

Isaac Waller
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    You could also buy a used mac for even less... – zpesk Jun 29 '09 at 03:46
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    This is true, but you'd really be doing yourself a huge disservice not using XCode, Interface Builder, Instruments, or the iPhone Simulator. Apple's tools are excellent, and (especially as a new iPhone developer) I think it'd be unwise to try to go without them! – Ben Gotow Jul 06 '09 at 14:56
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    Or you could build a Hackintosh or run Mac OS X in a Virtual Machine. – dave1010 Apr 13 '11 at 13:52
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    @dave1010 is it possibke to do it on Hackintosh. Please do let me know. waiting for your replay. – Megharaj Jun 20 '13 at 15:38
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    @Megharaj I assume it is but can't guarantee it. Good luck if you give it a go. – dave1010 Jul 01 '13 at 13:17
  • @dave1010 thanks for your replay. I will post if I try. – Megharaj Jul 02 '13 at 05:34
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There are two things I think you could try to develop iPhone applications.

  1. You can try the Aptana mobile wep app plugin for eclipse which is nice, although still in early stage. It comes with a emulator for running the applications so this could be helpful

  2. You can try cocoa

  3. (Extra) Here is a nice guide I found of guy who managed to get the iPhone SDK running in ubuntu, hope this help -_-. iPhone on Ubuntu

ferronrsmith
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I found one interesting site which seems pretty detailed on how you could setup a ubuntu for iPhone development. But it's a little old from November 2008 for the SDK 2.0.

Ubuntu 8.10 for iPhone open toolchain SDK2.0

The instructions also include something about the Android SDK/Emulator which you can leave out.

jitter
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With some tweaking and lots of sweat, it's probably possible to get gcc to compile your Obj-C source on Ubuntu to a binary form that will be compatible with an iPhone ARM processor. But that can't really be considered "iPhone Application development" because you won't have access to all the proprietary APIs of the iPhone (all the Cocoa stuff).

Another real problem is you need to sign your apps so that they can be made available to the app store. I know of no other tool than XCode to achieve that.

Also, you won't be able to test your code, as they is no open source iPhone simulator... maybe you might pull something off with qemu, but again, lots of effort ahead for a small result.

So you might as well buy a used mac or a Mac mini as it has been mentioned previously, you'll save yourself a lot of effort.

Florian
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Probably not. While I can't log into the Apple Development site, according to this post you need an intel mac platform.

http://tinleyharrier.blogspot.com/2008/03/iphone-sdk-requirements.html

rifferte
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It can be done!!!!!!

There is someone who did it.

Enjoy :)

kostia
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There are several way to do it, may decide to go the native way by downloading a VM application for linux and the install Mac OS in your VM and then download the Xcode application for mac But the true is i tried this path but it was really long so i decide to get sencha touch and phonegap for mobile phone,here the sencha-touch is a javascript framework that will help you in developing the interfaces and the phonegap is also javascript library which will help to access the feature of your Iphone or any oher mobile platform I'm using sencha-touch and phonegap ,its really work for me

hudson2010
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Perhaps the best way would be to implement your app as a web app. I think you can also make web apps that run direct on the phone, without internet access or a remote server.

Web app, sounds lame? But a lot can be done with DHTML / HTML5 / JavaScript. It's a rare app that requires more power and couldn't be done as a web app. And you get pretty good cross platform with Web / JavaScript - the browsers vary a bit but a good web dev can write one web app that works pretty much everywhere.

Of course if you're writing a high-performance 3D game, the browser might not deliver what you need! maybe in a few years... Apparently some Google hackers ported Quake 2 to HTML5 already!

http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/browsers/10-html5-games-paving-the-way/

Sam Watkins
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