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I do not have access to a MacOS box. Everything I've found while researching iPhone development leads me to believe that you have to have one to develop for the iPhone. I have a Windows 7 development box running Visual Studio 2010 with IIS 6.0 in the background. I need to develop an App. Can I create an icon-on-the-desktop-out-of-the-browser App with only HTML5, Javascript, and CSS3? Can I do it without MacOS and Objective-C? Most importantly, can I do it without spending hundreds of dollars or man hours?

Edits:

I will simplify my question: Can I develop an IIS web application that can be used out-of-browser on an iPhone?

Further Edits:

Does PhoneGap.com create native iPhone apps?

Community
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Jordan
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    the short answer is: you can just do a web-app (and you cannot sell it in apple iStore) – meronix Jul 20 '12 at 15:28
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    http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22358/how-can-i-develop-for-iphone-using-a-windows-development-machine – tikhop Jul 20 '12 at 15:31
  • I don't care about selling it. My client just wants it to be out-of-browser. I've never even held an iPhone, so I'm working in the dark. Can I do this with HTML 5? – Jordan Jul 20 '12 at 15:32
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    @Jordan, you certainly can do HTML5, but that still falls into 2 categories: Web Apps or Native Apps. Web Apps are still through the web browser, and you can make them look like native apps. In this case, you might still want an iPhone to test it. For native apps, you can write code, but you need to get them translated (by PhoneGap) into native code, and compile in xcode, and yes you need a mac. – Raymond Wang Jul 20 '12 at 18:25

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NO, you cannot.

think of buying a use Mac Mini. a lot of your requirements will be solved.

Nitin Alabur
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  • Lol, and they say that Microsoft is the monopoly. – Jordan Jul 20 '12 at 15:34
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    I think if someone pays a few (10 - 100) billion dollars to apple, they'll be glad to make a version of OSX for other manufacturers. I hate developing an app for 4.x version of iOS (if I had a choice, i'd make it 5.x and later), so I can imagine what it means to make an OS version thats supposed to run on third party hardware! markets and monopolies is a whole new topic :) – Nitin Alabur Jul 20 '12 at 15:43
  • @Jordan, that is only on PC world. Lol – Raymond Wang Jul 20 '12 at 18:22
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You need a Mac and iWhatever to develop native Objective-C apps.

However as you observe you can write a web app in HTML5 et al which users can deploy to their desktop.

Be aware that Web Apps don't get the quite the same runtime-engine that Safari uses so will not be as fast (http://9to5mac.com/2011/03/17/apple-confirms-ios-web-apps-run-slower-than-safari-dont-utilize-ios-4-3-web-performance-optimizations/)

That might have changed though.

Can you do it without spending hundreds of dollars or man hours? Thats subjective.

Warren Burton
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You can create a App on a Windows box using something like Adobe AIR which you can develop either in JavaScript or AS3 - just be careful of performance issues. See: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/air_for_ios.html

DeweyOx
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