do i need mac os for iphone application development ?

Hi,

I am new to iphone application development. Was just looking for pre-requisite software and os for the development.

Do i need mac os for iphone application development ? Isn't there any alternative ?

Jigar Naik wrote:Hi,

I am new to iphone application development. Was just looking for pre-requisite software and os for the development.

Do i need mac os for iphone application development ? Isn't there any alternative ?

You have to have a Mac to run xcode and compile your applications.

There are non-native iPhone development tools that can create apps, but not true iPhone apps. There are some code generator websites.

But on the whole if you want to create a true iPhone app with the same user experience you will need xcode and a Mac. But think of it this way, Macs are above and beyond better machines, and you will never look back after getting one.

Mark

thanks mark..

but bad news for me... i don't have mac

As Mark said, once you get a Mac you will never look back again.
I will write the last sentence a thousand times happily.
You don't have to get an iMac or a MacBook Pro, Mac Mini is an astonishing machine for development and the price is acceptable not to mention it is really adorable and huggable like any teddy bear.

John Todd wrote:As Mark said, once you get a Mac you will never look back again.
I will write the last sentence a thousand times happily.
You don't have to get an iMac or a MacBook Pro, Mac Mini is an astonishing machine for development and the price is acceptable not to mention it is really adorable and huggable like any teddy bear.

And you can also use your Mac Mini as a Home Theater PC with some cool software. Get the wireless keyboard and new Magic Trackpad and you can code in your living room to your big screen TV.

Mark

All right... Thanks a lot... Will buy one very soon... Exclusivly for iphone application development...

It will also run Windows, if you need it to.

Is it !!! So i can install both the operating system and will get option which one to start right ???

Jigar Naik wrote:All right... Thanks a lot... Will buy one very soon... Exclusivly for iphone application development...

Common, use it for everything

Mark Spritzler wrote:

John Todd wrote:As Mark said, once you get a Mac you will never look back again.
I will write the last sentence a thousand times happily.
You don't have to get an iMac or a MacBook Pro, Mac Mini is an astonishing machine for development and the price is acceptable not to mention it is really adorable and huggable like any teddy bear.

And you can also use your Mac Mini as a Home Theater PC with some cool software. Get the wireless keyboard and new Magic Trackpad and you can code in your living room to your big screen TV.

Mark

I LIKE the idea already.

Jigar Naik wrote:Is it !!! So i can install both the operating system and will get option which one to start right ???

Yes

Yes, you do need Mac OS X for that. Xcode(SDK) will only work on Mac OS X. However, if the legal part for you is not really important you can install Mac OS X on your normal PC. Just google a bit for Hackintosh.

thomas brian wrote:Yes, you do need Mac OS X for that. Xcode(SDK) will only work on Mac OS X. However, if the legal part for you is not really important you can install Mac OS X on your normal PC. Just google a bit for Hackintosh.

Great. I didn't know it. Thanks a lot.

Bother, I wanted to Convert tux paint for my iPad for my kids, but I am not buying a mac just for that, and I don't do rip offs.

A Mac is hardly a rip off -- it's a great value! Or are you saying you won't do a Hackintosh?

you can if you jailbreak your iPhone... but that's against your iPhone's EULA, jailbreaking would void your warranty, and there's a question on how to distribute your program without requiring a jailbroken phone.

You could program to Safari for Windows, but that wouldn't be iPhone developement (it's closer to web development). You won't be able to take advantage of all the functions on the iPhone this way, but most of these limitations can be solved with a little creativity.

In short, there's a gray area of the iPhone SDK prevent development on other platforms (read: not Mac).

This might probably be a stupid question. Can I develop IPad app on the IPad?

I have an IPad, I don't have a Mac. I want to build games for myself. Can't I just compile it on IPad and play on it?

XCode only runs on OS X, not on iOS, so - no.

Have you considered writing your game as an HTML5 web app? Just a thought...

Thanks Bear. That's a good idea. DOes Safari support Canvas? I've been meaning to get into HTML5 too. I can try that on the IPad

http://caniuse.com is a good resource to find out what's supported in the various browsers.

It's pricey, but I'd say a 256G 13 inch Macbook Air with half the drive partitioned for Windows 7 bootcamp is about as close to heaven as you can get.

I love my setup, one minute you're doing Xcode, than after a quick reboot into windows, you're doing Visual Studio, Sql Server, or whatever. The SSD memory makes VMs run pretty snappy too so you can have VirtualBox running Ubuntu and/or Centos for some free linux fun.

John Soper wrote:It's pricey, but I'd say a 256G 13 inch Macbook Air with half the drive partitioned for Windows 7 bootcamp is about as close to heaven as you can get.

I love my setup, one minute you're doing Xcode, than after a quick reboot into windows, you're doing Visual Studio, Sql Server, or whatever. The SSD memory makes VMs run pretty snappy too so you can have VirtualBox running Ubuntu and/or Centos for some free linux fun.

Why reboot?? Install Windows into a virtual machine. You can have Linux, Windows running in VMs and Mac normally all at the same time. No rebooting.

Mark

Mark Spritzler wrote:

Why reboot?? Install Windows into a virtual machine. You can have Linux, Windows running in VMs and Mac normally all at the same time. No rebooting.

Mark

I like giving Windows 7 the whole 4 gig memory space to play with. Besides, bootchamp (not misspelled) is faster than firing up
VirtualBox. Plus it's fun, feels like two different laptops.

Windows 8 definitely stays in virtual land though (I'm still on consumer preview anyway).

Wish there was an easy way to cook up a Hackintosh.

I tried it several times but could not succeed :'(

Too much a price to pay (in India, these are really very expensive).

But still a Mac(s) are awesome. I will get one.. someday