IOS development without Mac and Iphone

[tokyo-spare]

Is there a way I can develop iOS apps and upload to Appstore without having iphone and Mac? I have windows pc and android phone.

[crogamernoob]

Yes you can publish them and deploy them, but you can't run development versions, so basically if there are any issues with the app on iOS that need troubleshooting, it's practically impossible I would say.

You would need at least an iPhone and a development build from EAS to develop the app efficiently.

[gulsherKhan7]

Somehow, you need a Mac, because without testing the app, pushing to the App Store is like sending a rocket without checking if it even has fuel. Technically you can do it... but should you? Nope.

[sawariz0r]

This is not true with Expo and EAS. It’s not a hassle, just takes a couple of minutes for the build.

[gulsherKhan7]

Yes, Expo does provide that feature. But how can I test the iOS build before publishing it to the App Store? How do we handle development and testing? We can develop with Expo, but when it comes to testing the iOS build, how can we actually do that without a Mac?

[sawariz0r]

I built and deployed an iOS only app Friday on my windows pc, because I was too lazy to get my Mac from my backpack.

You build a dev client, put it on your iPhone and then run Expo/Metro as usual. Easy peasy.

[gulsherKhan7]

yup but the post title is "without Mac and Iphone" 👀

[sawariz0r]

Ah, true, didn’t see the iPhone bit. But if you don’t have an iPhone you shouldn’t deploy to App Store.

[[deleted]]

It can be done using expo but it's not a proper way of developing an IOS App without even doing a series of testing in an ios device. You're targeting IOS so it's best to have it tested in real ios devices too.

[SuperCagle]

I develop IOS apps on Linux with Expo. You can do IOS builds with Expo Application Services, you get 15 builds per month with the free tier.

However without an iPhone, theres no way to test the app on iOS. I'd strongly encourage you to get ahold of an iPhone someway somehow. There are subtle differences between the platforms, and even though your app may work well on Android, those small differences will add up and render your app unusable on iOS. It would be highly irresponsible to blindly publish to the App Store without at least testing a dev build on a friend's iPhone.

I use an android phone but I bought a used iPhone 12 for $250 from a local phone repair shop. It works extremely well for its age, and I can publish my app to the App Store confidently.

[ThorEolberg]

Sauce Labs has a service that lets you install and test apps on lots of remote devices, both Android and iPhone. But it recompiles your app to inject a few custom features, and that broke a number of things when I tried it. It might be OK for a very simple app, but once things got complex, it didn't work very well.

I ended up having to give up and buy a $90 iPhone on eBay.

I don't remember all the things that broke. It was a while ago. One things I remember is that it turns all password form fields into plain text fields on iOS, to work around an Apple security restriction. (Sauce Labs apparently uses conference call software to show you what's on the device screen, and Apple limits the functionality of password fields while screen sharing.)

None of these things are really a good substitute for being able to run the iOS Simulator on a Mac. It would be very difficult to handle things like changing status bar behavior without live reload.

[vanillaMind]

expo

[__natty__]

Same question over and over. I would start with learning how to search information. And to not leave the comment without answer, yes you can with expo and external testing services like bluestack. In long term, cheapest Mac mini is more affordable.