iOS iOS / Mac Development in Windows?

[evilmurries]

Hello,

I have been getting into swift programming on my Mac with Xcode using Apple's free books. I was curious, how are iOS and Mac apps developed on windows? Is it done at all? What are the preferred tools? Pros and Cons? A brief overview would be helpful. I have a 5k iMac that I do all of my work on, but I have a second PC I might set up in another location, and would like to continue my work on there. Thank you.

 

[jeffkempster]

Fortunately you have to have a Mac to compile iOS and Mac code. So the windows route won’t work. And if you think “I will use Xamarin” that also requires a Mac. No way around it.

The best you could do right now is to remote into your Mac from the PC. That would let you use Xcode and the simulator but you obviously couldn’t plug in a test device to the PC.

Hello,

I have been getting into swift programming on my Mac with Xcode using Apple's free books. I was curious, how are iOS and Mac apps developed on windows? Is it done at all? What are the preferred tools? Pros and Cons? A brief overview would be helpful. I have a 5k iMac that I do all of my work on, but I have a second PC I might set up in another location, and would like to continue my work on there. Thank you.

 

[PhoneyDeveloper]

The iOS toolchain will only run on a Mac, although the swift toolchain is supported on Linux. There are some cloud services that do allow iOS development but I haven't used any of them. Google 'Mac in the cloud' to find some.

 

[evilmurries]

Thank you for the responses. This is a google type question, but I wanted to hear from the MacRumors crowd. I went to alt-conf last couple years and Microsoft has had a presence with Visual Studio. I figured they were pushing iOS / Mac development on Windows, but they must have been going for Visual Studio Mac adoption. I'll probably just keep the pc around for video games until I can come up with a project for it.

I am really enjoying projects in Xcode with Swift, especially after having to do assignments in android studio the last couple of days.