Build iOS Apps on Linux and Windows | Hacker News Reader

Build iOS Apps on Linux and Windows

forums.swift.org

269 pointsplurby54 comments

Mega cool!

We should all be taking full advantage of the amazing capabilities of the pocket supercomputers we all carry around with us at all times (even if the companies who make them don't want us to or don't care about us). Anything less would be silly! Now Linux and Windows users (the majority of iPhone users) can do easily do so, and that's great.

To install your own personal homebrew apps without Apple's approval, use AltStore (Windows) or SideStore (Linux):

https://faq.altstore.io/altstore-classic/how-to-install-alts...

https://docs.sidestore.io/docs/installation/linux

> To install your own personal homebrew apps without Apple's approval, use AltStore (Windows) or SideStore (Linux)

It works by signing the build with your personal Apple ID, using Apple servers.

True, it's far from ideal, and not entirely without Apple's approval. You need an Apple ID, to accept Apple's EULA (which probably forbids such activities), to accept the risk of your Apple ID being banned [1], to accept the risk of Apple breaking things (intentionally or not), and to continue asking Apple's server for new signatures every week into the foreseeable future.

Still better than nothing, for those already fully immersed in the Apple ecosystem, with no hope of escape? (I still use and recommend Android, but I have a spare iPad to play around with, so I enjoy seeing stuff like this come out.)

[1] They recommend using a secondary Apple ID, which eliminates most of the risk: https://swiftpackageindex.com/xtool-org/xtool/1.10.1/documen...

Why does Apple behave like there are no other operating systems or devices in the world? for a long time, even in their keynotes they would compare the new iphones with the last year model, not the flagship androids. and their standards mostly work for themselves, not the rest of the world. for example, most keybindings in Pages are totally different than Word and the rest of the text editing apps (CMD-E is supposed to center things but it doesn't). they created a language (Swift) and kept it closed source for a long time, and then didn't extend support to other OS's. presumably they do this so devs who wanna make iOS apps have to purchase Macs, but quite honestly this is just lazy corporate shenanigans. There are far more important reasons to buy a Mac, and anyone who uses Linux isn't suddenly going to convert to macOS just so they can build iOS apps (they probably have more fundamental issues with non-FOSS software anyway).

> Why does Apple behave like there are no other operating systems or devices in the world?

Because Apple doesn't care. Or, to be more accurate, Apple didn't care while Steve Jobs was still alive. They never cared what the rest of the world was doing - their mission had always been to build the entire user experience from scratch. The software, hardware, everything. Because in their eyes (or at least in Jobs' eyes) the rest of the world was doing it all wrong.

Ever since Steve Jobs died, the company he built has been slowly taken over by the wrong kinds of people. Apple Intelligence, for example, is not driven by any of the philosophy that Jobs would have used. And Apple software updates have been slowly declining in quality ever since his death.

My total speculation was that Steve Jobs was autistic and Apple was sort of an autistic revolution. I don't know what Tim Cook is, but he's no Steve Jobs. Apple is slowly devolving into the sort of thinking that is not different and that is a real shame.

> Apple software updates have been slowly declining in quality ever since his dea

For years I installed all Apple software updates instantly and without reserve. These days I wait for at least the .1 release, after being bitten a few times by bugs and workflow breaking pointless changes.

> My total speculation was that Steve Jobs was autistic and Apple was sort of an autistic revolution.

Yes, I assume his abrasiveness was a result of an autistic drive for perfection combined with an autistic difficulty with picking up on social queues. But I’m not sure it’s possible to know this for sure. So many people simply read it as narcissism (which has overlapping external features) I’m not sure everyone can tell the difference (during a social interaction) between a narcissistic lack of concern for others vs an autistic inability to properly read and react to social queues.

There was Australian… professor(?) Whose youtube videos I can’t find right now who quite comfortably claimed Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Robin Williams were autistic.

Best I could find is a Temple Grandin blurb about Jobs and Wozniak being autistic and still different sorts of thinkers:

https://youtu.be/L2NTVEU7IaI?si=7RVienyhYWEdLrGo

I can't say whether he was or wasn't a narcissist, because I can't really tell one way or the other, but I don't think he had a simple inability to pick up on social cues. At least, that doesn't look to have been the cause of the abrasiveness. To me, it just seemed like he believed that people could do better.

This video is just one tiny piece of history, but I'd call it a very good watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Fs0pD2Hsk

Today's Apple doesn't truly stand for this anymore. Today's Apple is not the same Apple. It still has Jobs' Apple in its core, and that's why there ever was a solid base to build upon... but their new stuff is all hit or miss, sometimes very miss, because they're not the crazy ones anymore. They're slowly rotting into a generic megacorp... and that is very sad.

I think that you’re right that Apple is different, but it’s different so that Apple can control it. I wrote about this recently in another comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=43953751

The gist of it is this:

Both Steves worked for Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese. I believe that Jobs was likely inspired by Bushnell to create a tech ecosystem to enable easy creation, monetization, and control. But mostly, I think Jobs and Wozniak created Apple to enable them both to create the kinds of technology they needed and wanted, to get the work done they knew folks were using personal computers for. Personal computers have distinct use cases which make them distinct from mainframes or other systems largely outside the control of individuals, and this appeal to the individual is what differentiates Apple from Google or other computer hardware companies. Apple still actually has tech support, retail stores, and yet the goalposts of the market and consumer expectations have moved. Apple hasn’t kept up with what consumers expect in many ways, and the markets they serve have changed, as Apple is now serving multiple sides of markets that they operate as an intermediary, as opposed to the past where Apple was constrained to being a participant in multiple, sometimes overlapping markets.

> I think that you’re right that Apple is different, but it’s different so that Apple can control it.

Control would not be such a bad thing if Apple could still be trusted. Unfortunately it seems that they have started to lose their way.

It's not like they became worthless or evil at the flip of a switch - it takes time for such a large company to die like that. But they are declining (in ways other than profit, of course).

They have still managed to create some genuinely good innovation, such as Apple Silicon Macs, but they are seeming to gradually lose their ability to do that properly.

I don't see any problem with wanting more control over the user experience so that it can be improved. Honestly, it seems like the problem you're describing started with how that control has been (ab)used since Steve Jobs' death. I feel like that brought all the corruption out of hiding because Tim doesn't necessarily shoot it all down like Jobs would have.

I wonder if Phil Schiller were at the helm instead of Tim would the devolution would be staved off for longer?

I still remember the “can’t innovate anymore my ass” quip which revealed a bit of a personal chip on Phil’s shoulder, contrasting Tim’s lack of enthusiasm towards to product experience and general billionairy apathy that’s perfectly symbolized by his flaccid flag-waving at the Miami F1 race.

They are unique because they own they whole widget and provide a whole widget experience. They aren’t worried about the fractional widget market.

> for a long time, even in their keynotes they would compare the new iphones with the last year model, not the flagship androids.

Because it wouldn’t be a fair fight when one platform is three years behind you in performance.

And yet, they still regularly compare AS Macs to Intel Macs.

> Why does Apple behave like there are no other operating systems or devices in the world?

Dress for the job you want

In addition to the other answers, when it comes to the Mac they’re not as worried about bringing new people aboard as they are with keeping existing users happy. Keep in mind that some of these users have been on board since the 80s or 90s and so the Apple way of doing things is as natural to them as the Microsoft way of doing things is to the masses. The benefit to suddenly wholeheartedly aping MS all of the sudden is questionable — most Windows users still aren’t going to switch for various reasons (e.g. there’s no Billy’s Bargain Basement $200 Macs or there’s some Windows-only software they need). They’d only be alienating their existing users.

Woah this is very exciting if true! I love Linux and my framework laptop, but have wanted to make simple iOS apps.

That being said, PWA’s are damn capable at this point for basic little apps. I wish more laypeople were aware of the ability to “install” PWA’s. Most non-tech people only think apps come from the iOS App Store.

Are PWA's subject to Safari's data collection policies or is it different?

Why bothering collecting on the client, when we can collect everything on the server?

What if there is no server? An offline first PWA could easily be served via a static web host.

FYI, I've been making iOS apps on Linux for a while now, I just use CodeMagic to do the build step - https://codemagic.io/

Yeah I do really wish PWAs got more attention. But it’s very, very difficult to do that last mile of UI polish that makes the average iOS app gleam by comparison. Fingers crossed we’ll see more browser primitive APIs in that area.

The user flow for installing PWAs is so dumb. It’s deliberate I guess. It doesn’t align with the idea of “installing” or even a marketplace. I think the language is something like “add to home” and it’s not clear that it’s anything other than a shortcut to a website.

> PWA’s are damn capable at this point for basic little apps. I wish more laypeople were aware of the ability to “install” PWA’s. Most non-tech people only think apps come from the iOS App Store.

I recently had a conversation with my business partner about our SaaS, he was pushing for us to write a full mobile app for our service and I pushed back and said lets do a PWA instead.

From a technical perspective, maintaining a PWA is so much easier in my opinion than maintaining a mobile app, even if you end up writing a new codebase specifically for your PWA. Simply not having to go through Apple saves so much time.

As for education the distribution channel is very different. We advertise our PWA in our website and prompt people to install it in our app if we see that they are running the right browser/device.

I would say at this point if you have a "business app" that just does regular CRUD stuff and doesn't reach for any mobile API's, a PWA is perfect.

There's always some catch to make sure you can't 100% jump to a PWA and skip the native app. At least PWAs can do push notifications finally.

Awesome! I hope Apple will not get the lawyers out for this project (especially for licensing issues)... but this is promising for the future!

It should be usable in Asahi Linux on Mac hardware.

Not a practical suggestion, but would it be feasible to run xtool on jailbroken iOS devices? (I mean, those are definitely Apple-branded!)

maximal malicious compliance!

Once Asahi Linux support matures (e.g. Thunderbolt external storage for software RAID) Mac Mini hardware with Linux for CI/CD will be competitive on price/performance/watt.

If Apple would re-enable Linux VMs on iPad/iPhone, everyone could be happy. Thankfully Google is now shipping a full pKVM Linux VM ("Terminal") on Pixel phones, including USB-c docking to external keyboard and mouse. Hopefully that "inspires" Apple to restore the Linux VM functionality they removed three years ago. Then iPhone Pro + USB-c dock = Linux desktop for iOS app development, buying time for Apple to converge iOS/macOS/visionOS in +++ years.

Okay, but what if

what if we run it on Android on an iPhone [0]

[0]: e.g. https://projectsandcastle.org/

Wish Corellium could work with Asahi to upstream Apple device support to mainline Linux.

I doubt it, as it's being announced on Swift.org.

In a forum post – it’s not an official announcement. But since it hasn’t been taken down yet I guess there is hope?

Likely, Apple won’t have any desire to take it down, as you still need to go through the App Store approval process, to sell on the App Store (and they still get their vig).

But they also probably won’t go out of their way to support it. It could break, down the road.

AFAIK the Apple EULA, which you have to agree to before uploading Apps to the App store, requires that you have built the software on Apple Hardware.

IANAL, but if I understand correctly that means, the only conformant way to build on linux would be to you install linux on the Apple hardware.

With antitrust regulators (including, to a certain extent, the relatively feckless ones in the USA) breathing down Apple and Google's necks, they might not be able to get away with enforcing that rule for long.

It may use Secure Enclave.

It doesn’t.

Not even for key protection?

Nothing requires you to protect your keys.

I really hope that the EU might step in once again. I own an iPhone, I am a software developer, but I cannot distribute apps to end users, because I don't own a Mac. That is frustrating.

I’ve never tried because I’m on Mac these days, but can’t you meet the licensing rules by using a Mac vps for 10 minutes to do a build, or even just use GitHub actions? (I read that GitHub actions provides a Mac build option but I’ve not tried it)

Probably, yes.

Likewise a Mac developer cannot distribute Windows apps, Playstation, Switch, XBox,...

I don’t know about the consoles, but I'm a Windows Developer with over two decades of experience.

In contrast to MacOS, I can run Windows on pretty much every x86 machine available. Thanks to EU reseller laws, I can also obtain a cheap license. Finally, I have to pay a small one-time fee for a developer account at Microsoft, in contrast to the recurring fee Apple is charging.

So… that's apples and oranges to me.

Provided you are lucky that drivers exist out of the box for that x86 machine.

By the way, try to install Windows ARM, or Windows CoPilot+ PC on any board you feel like.

i was thinking it would have used the swift build project https://github.com/swiftlang/swift-build recently released but i didn't find any mention of that.

Did i miss something ?

The GNUstep project offers a similar tool:

https://github.com/gnustep/libs-xcode

Note: you can also use it to replace Xcode on macOS for building iOS software!

Also, there is an MCP Server to bypass Xcode from Cursor: https://github.com/cameroncooke/XcodeBuildMCP

hope flutter integrate this fast

oh they wont

why lol

If you want to build your flutter app for iOS but doesn't have any apple devices, you can try osX (search in github) which basically just a macOS vm with docker. From there just do your stuff with xcode, and classic flutter build.

I already have an working production iOS app on apple store right now

but that's doesn't have anything to do with this post

Reply on news.ycombinator.com