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iPad development without a mac – Ebay API

I am interested in developing an app for my new iPad purely for my own use. (well to start with at least)

  • Is there a way to develop an app without a mac?
  • Can I install the app only on my own iPad without having to sign up to the right to publish it when I might not even want to do that?

EDIT:

Could i use an old G3 powerbook for development? They can be picked up really cheap on ebay. Would something of that spec be up to running the xcode development environment?

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7

Answers


  2. 0

    Is there a way to develop an app without a mac?

    Officially, no. Realistically, unless you like wasting countless hours, no.

    Can I install the app only on my own iPad without having to sign up to the right to publish it when I might not even want to do that?

    No, you must be a paid developer in order to push to anything but the simulator.

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  3. 0

    You do not technically need a Mac to develop an app, unless you are serious about it. There are couple of solutions available to you for developing mac-less.

    First, there are some services that port your HTML5 web apps into an iOS app, so you only need to write your code HTML5.

    Second, if you dont want to buy a Mac, you can instead buy Snow Leopard or Lion, and build your own “hackintosh” (a windows computer hacked to run off the mac operating system).

    Finally, you cannot make your app available for purchase in the App Store unless you are a paid developer. However, you could publish online as an HTML5 web application, or you could publish your app in a third-party app developer market (however you could only intall that app if you jailbreak your iPad).

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  4. 0

    Yes, you can develop without apple computer (using hackintosh).

    And yes, you can install the developed app on your iPad without having to pay for developer program. There are a tons of guides over the internet about running (thus installing) apps on ios devices without developer program.

    check this:
    How can I deploy an iPhone application from Xcode to a real iPhone device?

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  5. 0

    You can develop for iOS without a Mac by using Adobe Flex. The Flex SDK is free and Open Source, and includes a compiler + packager. If you want an IDE, you can get Adobe FlashBuilder (not free, but with a free 90-day trial), which makes your development time much more productive.
    You would not develop in C, C++, or Objective C, but in a combination of ActionScript (a dialect of Javascript) and MXML (markup language, mainly for rich GUI layout).

    On the minus side: you have less control over what you can do (you can still do a lot) and you cannot use the iOS SDK directly.

    On the plus side: it is very easy to develop great looking apps, and with very little changes, you can recompile them for Android, Blackberry Playbook, Windows, and Mac OS X.

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  6. 0

    Not sure how new this is, but Dragon Fire SDK is 100% Windows based (you do submit your code to them for compilation), but at no time are you required to own a Mac.

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  7. 0

    I think the best option is to develop the application using HTML5 / Javascript and CSS, and use a service like appMobi or PhoneGap to compile it for IOS. They both have an online service that can make the build for you without needing you to own a Mac.

    You have also the added advantage that you can compile your app not only for IOS, but for Windows Mobile, Android, Blackberry and even the good old web.

    You have some Javascript libraries like JQTouch that allows you to easily implement the IPhone look and feel in your web app. Normally you can’t access the native API from Javascript, but these solutions (appMobi and PhoneGap) offers a Javascript API that you can use to access Camera, GPS, Gyro, etc…

    I think normally serious apps are coded for many platforms, and if you don’t have the structure to pay to 4 different skill sets, it makes sense to code in HTML5, and from there you have a more future and device proof solution. Even if you “can” pay different developers to code in diffrent mobile platforms I would prefer to do it in HTML5.

    Oh, and also take a look at applicationcraft.com, pretty cool online IDE (wysiwyg) connected to PhoneGap, really easy to develop prototypes. The generated HTML/Javascript is not very usefull to continue editing it outside their IDE (a bit complicated), but, again, for something very simple or a prototype it’s something you must check out.

    Good Luck

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