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What is the standard developer platform for developing iPhone apps, e.g. the equivalent of Eclipse?

Michael Petrotta
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    No need for down votes, some people are beginners and may not know the appropriate terminology to search for. – TigerCoding Nov 19 '11 at 06:30

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Xcode is the standard and only supported (by Apple) IDE for iOS development. It's also required, since you have to install it if you want any of the developer tools (you may be able to exclude the actual IDE when installing the developer tools, though I doubt it, but you'd still want Xcode for building iOS projects anyway). So, I suppose that is equivalent to Eclipse.

  • +1 for the answer. I worked that out and then stupidly went to install it on my PC. To do so you need to install the Virtual Machine for the OS for it all to work, I don’t even allow iTunes on my PC…lol. Apple are shooting themselves in the foot again. Now I’ve moved onto WP7 and of course I’m having trouble trying to consume the JSON objects that my Android apps loves. They are really trying to sell their phones and making life hard on developers who will continue to just struggle through and build apps for all three anyway!!! –  Nov 20 '11 at 01:07
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    Well, WP7 requires Windows, so I don't see much difference between the way WP7 and iOS development works out. The only real difference is that you probably started with a Windows machine. Those of us on Macs to begin with would, in turn, think Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot by requiring Windows, since iOS is the successful platform and WP7 is languishing (by comparison, anyway - it's certainly not doing too well). As for Android, their SDK seems to prefer Mac OS, but works sort of well on other platforms. –  Nov 20 '11 at 20:20
  • WP7 and iPhone are both shooting themselves in the foot! I think WP7 and Nocia have one last chance and if iPhone don’t let up a little, developers are not going to want to work with it. If you can’t develop both on your computer of choice I see the other guy winning this race. And I’m not going to get into the Mac V Windows thing, I’ve be programming for far too long to be bothered with that, I just can’t believe it’s happening again with phones!!! Remember there are three at play this time. –  Nov 20 '11 at 21:22
  • Three at play, but one isn't succeeding and the other two are just kind off doing their own thing. I don't think most developers care - I certainly don't. iOS is unlikely to lose developers because it's successful, and Android's unlikely to lose developers for the same reason. Microsoft should probably be worried, but otherwise I don't really see it as a problem. –  Nov 20 '11 at 22:23
  • For me, I was all stoked to start writing iPhone apps now I have Android where I want it, I have an old phone but now I need a Mac! :-( no problem with just except for the $$$ –  Nov 21 '11 at 08:33
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Xcode is the best IDE for iphone apps

Gabriel
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    XCode 4 is the latest release for Snow Leopard or Lion (both require Mac computers to run). Get it at http://developer.apple.com/iphone/index.action or the Mac App Store. – TigerCoding Nov 19 '11 at 05:42
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Apple’s Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for creating apps for Mac, iPhone, and iPad is called Xcode.

Xcode 4 includes the Xcode IDE, Instruments, iOS Simulator, and the latest Mac OS X and iOS software development kits (SDKs).

You can download it from the Apple website but note, Xcode only runs on Mac OS X and that is only supported on Apple Macintosh computers.

No other development environment is supported by Apple.

See also: iPhone development on Windows .

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johnsyweb
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