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Possible Duplicates:
iPhone development on PC
iPhone development on Windows

Do I really need a Mac to make small simple apps for iPad? Is there any kind of work around? Cool IDE?

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Marthin
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    When you asked Apple, what did they say? – S.Lott May 21 '10 at 20:28
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    This is a valid question. He's not talking about being a major developer, here... just write a few simple apps. – Armstrongest May 21 '10 at 20:30
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    Geez, this one gets asked about once a week. – Paul Tomblin May 21 '10 at 20:31
  • Duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2261267/iphone-development-on-pc, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/113547/iphone-development-on-windows, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/377672/ipod-touch-iphone-development-on-windows – Ken Bloom May 21 '10 at 20:36
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    Ok i'm sorry for repeating a question that comes around alot, but hey, why not just answer the question instead of being rude? – Marthin May 21 '10 at 20:38
  • He answered the question... by pointing you to the answer to an exact duplicate. Doesn't seem rude to me. – Armstrongest May 31 '10 at 17:56

9 Answers9

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Yes, you need an Intel-based Mac to develop for iPhone/iPad if you want to do so with their native SDK.

There are workarounds, a few of which are listed here but they may be rendered unusable with the latest version of iPhone OS since they will soon disallow just about anything that doesn't use the native SDK

Daniel DiPaolo
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I wasn't going to post it, but you did say any reply :)

Browser based (safari compatible) apps would be one "work around". I know it's a weak answer, but sometimes people miss the obvious answers so there you go.

Jim L
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Yes. And you can use Xcode IDE

DVK
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  • I voted you up, but maybe someone voted you down because you wrote “Xcode IDE” instead of just “Xcode”. At least you weren’t all like, “And you can use OS X xCODE MAC IDE”… Some people are pretty picky, though. – Jonathan Sterling May 31 '10 at 20:57
  • @Jonathan - Thanks for the upvote! :) IMHO That'd be a pretty flimsy excuse for downvote since the Xcode link starts off with the text: "Your integrated development environment for creating great iPad, iPhone, and Mac applications." - and "integrated development environment" is what IDE stands for :) – DVK Jun 01 '10 at 14:58
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You will likely need OS X.

Both Monotouch and XCODE run on OS X.

If you can get OS X to run on a non-Mac then no, you don't need a Mac.

However, realistically... yes you do.

Armstrongest
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The iPhone and iPad SDK relies on code that comes packaged with the Mac OS. If you want to build legitimate applications and have the possibility of listing those apps in the iTunes store, you must build them on a Mac.

There are ways around this to build apps that will never be distributed ... but those methods tend to be highly illegal.

EAMann
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You can still develop iPhone/iPad WebApps that look like native apps on pretty much any web development platform/toolset.

Ryan
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    Not true. Web apps that try to look native feel awful. Write your web app using standards and normal design and it will feel good on iPad. I'd you want native-looking UI, write a f*cking native UI. – Jonathan Sterling May 30 '10 at 15:46
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While I am not an attorney, based upon the new SDK agreement, I believe you can use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create native iPhone/iPad apps. There is actually a book already there that talks about how to do that. Here is the book, http://www.amazon.com/Building-iPhone-Apps-HTML-JavaScript/dp/0596805780/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274474001&sr=8-1

Monte Chan
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If you want to create small simple apps for iPhone/iPad, you can create a Web app that runs in Safari using HTML. You can actually create fairly slick apps with this method and make them look like native apps. I've create some using jQTouch and they look like native apps. You can test them either in Safari on Windows or on your iPhone or iPad.

Mark
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It wouldn't be easy to develop an iPhone/iPad application on Windows. You would have to install OSX86 on your PC, or run a virtualized OSX install through vmware if possible. Apple is incredibly restrictive on software provisioning and app store approval, so you may have a hard time testing and releasing your app later on. For these reasons and more, I'm switching to Android development.

bobasaurus
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