iPhone SDK on Windows (alternative solutions)

Question

I know there is no official SDK for Windows, which is very annoying. Is there any way to develop applications on a Windows computer, other than somehow running a Mac OS in V

Answer 1

This really comes down to how much you value your time. As the other posters have mentioned, there are a couple of ways you can build iPhone apps without a Mac. However, you are jumping through serious hoops, and it'll be much more difficult and take longer than it would with the proper development chain.

You can buy a second-hand Mac Mini for a couple of hundred bucks on eBay. If you're serious about doing iPhone development you'll make this back in saved time very quickly.

Answer 2

There are two ways:

1. If you are patient (requires Ubuntu corral pc and Android SDK and some heavy terminal work to get it all set up). See Using the 3.0 SDK without paying for the priviledge.

2. If you are immoral (requires Mac OS X Leopard and virtualization, both only obtainable through great expense or pirating) - remove space from the following link. htt p://iphonewo rld. codinghut.com /2009/07/using-the-3-0-sdk-without-paying-for-the-priviledge/

I use the Ubuntu method myself.

Answer 3

Technically you can write code in a .NET language and use the Mono Framework (http://www.mono-project.com/) to run it on the iPhone. I haven't ever seen someone do this from scratch, but the folks that write the Unity Game Development platform (http://unity3d.com/) use it to make their games iPhone-compatible. The game itself is written in .NET, and then they provide an iPhone shell with the Mono frameworks that allows everything to run on the iPhone. I don't know whether they've contributed all of their modifications to Mono back to the open-source repository, but if you're serious about writing iPhone apps outside the Mac environment, it might be possible.

That said, I think you could dump weeks into getting that to work, and it might be best to invest in a Mac instead :-)

Answer 4

There is another solution if you want to develop in C/C++. http://www.DragonFireSDK.com will allow you to build iPhone applications in Visual Studio on Windows. It's worth a look-see for sure.

Answer 5

You could easily build an app using PhoneGap or Appcelerators Titanium Mobile.

Both of these essentially act as a WebKit wrapper, so you can build your application with HTML/CSS/JavaScript. It's a pretty portable solution, too, but you are somewhat limited in what you can make - i.e, no intensive rendering or anything. It really all depends on what you're looking to do.

Answer 6

No, you must have an Intel Mac of some sort. I went to Best Buy and got a 24" iMac with 4G RAM for $1499 using their 18 month no interest promotion. I pay a minimum payment of something like $16 a month. As long as I pay the entire thing off within 18 months - no interest. That was the only way I was getting into iPhone development.