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I am currently using reactNative to build a mobile app from my windows computer (my only computer). The app needs to be tested on a physical device rather than a simulator or emulator because it involves a QR Scanner, and when I tried testing the QR scanner on an android simulator/emulator from Android Studio, it couldn't connect to my laptop's camera. The catch to all this is that my only physical mobile device is an iPhone, and React Native requires MacOS for iOS development.

I tried to get around this by using expo, but I am working as part of a group, and the code requires use of some packages from react-native-community, packages which expo doesn't support. While research has stated that ejecting from expo into separate iOS and Android builds may be able to solve this problem of what packages I can use, I worry that it'll bring back my problem of having to test the program on an iOS phone from a windows computer. Nothing I can find is clear on whether this problem will return or not.

So my two questions are essentially as follows-

  1. Will ejecting from expo allow me to build an app to be tested on an iOS phone from a windows computer while having access to the full scope of react-native and react-native-community resources (assuming I install them correctly)?
  2. Is there another, better method for developing a reactNative app from a windows computer that can be tested on an iPhone?
Duncan Bertetti
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  • for building iOS app you will definitely require macOS, but if you want to test in android emulator you can apply camera setting as shown in this [link](https://stackoverflow.com/a/55749661/10429259). in short go to AVD manager->edit emulator->show advance setting here you can see camera setting, from here you can select your laptop webcam. – Bhavin Jul 28 '21 at 17:25
  • Invest in a mac is a must if you are building for both android/ios devices. Alternative is just rent an android device, as iOS setup will take some time too. – joantoh Jul 28 '21 at 17:59

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You can DEVELOP IOS apps on windows using Xamarin and Unity to name a few. There are also a few paid "Simulators" out there too like Smartface. However if you want to compile, run and distribute the apps you will need:

a Mac - machine running OSX

Xcode - Free

IOS Developer account around $90

A less costly way around this is to purchase a used mac mini and hook it up to your existing mouse, keyboard and monitor.