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iOS Legal way to develop for iPhone on Windows?

H

HoopTrundler

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 7, 2011
71
0
Before you all roll your eyes and tell me it's impossible, hear me out. :p

I've looked into this a bit, and I found two possible solutions: there's a program called Marmalade that apparently allows you to develop for several different devices, and there's also the possibility of me installing Mac OSX in a virtual machine. For each of those possibilities, I have a couple questions:

1. Does anybody who has used Marmalade know if I'd actually have access to the iPhone SDK through this? Would I pretty much be able to do everything I could do in XCode through Marmalade?
2. The latest version of OSX that's available on disc is Snow Leopard (so that would be the only one I could legally install on my Windows computer), but the latest version of XCode only runs on Lion (I believe), so would that be a problem? Could I just use an older version of XCode and it would work fine? Or is there some reason I wouldn't be able to?

Sorry if these seem like stupid questions, but I couldn't find the answers anywhere online. I'd just really like to get into iPhone app development. Thank you!
 
Comeagain?

Comeagain?

macrumors 68020
Feb 17, 2011
2,190
46
Spokane, WA
You could go the SL route...until you wanted to develop for iOS 5 or 6. Then you'll need the latest SDKs, which will require newer versions of Xcode...new versions that require Lion/ML.
 
jnoxx

jnoxx

macrumors 65816
Dec 29, 2010
1,343
0
Aartselaar // Antwerp // Belgium
You can hire a Mac in the cloud to test it out first, so it's just visual.
there's a website specially called for that -> 'mac in the cloud' I think ;p
Or like other said, get a mac, or try to install a hackintosh on a partition of your pc.
 
jnoxx

jnoxx

macrumors 65816
Dec 29, 2010
1,343
0
Aartselaar // Antwerp // Belgium
I said OR install a hackintosh, a legal way is hiring a Mac in the cloud. Like I proposed :)
And you can also download the Snow Leopard, and buy the upgrade, since it's just installing over your basic Snow Leopard installation :)
 
P

pkmcculloch

macrumors newbie
Apr 18, 2012
3
0
HoopTrundler said:
2. The latest version of OSX that's available on disc is Snow Leopard
Click to expand...

The Lion download contains a disk image which you can extract & burn to a physical disk if you want (though you might have a a bit of a chicken/egg problem accessing the app store without a mac!)
 
X

xStep

macrumors 68020
Jan 28, 2003
2,031
143
Less lost in L.A.
I believe that the OS X EULA states the it can be installed only on a Mac. So it may not be legal to install on a VM or non-Mac

If you have a paid up iOS dev account, you can still download Xcode 4.2 which allows for development up to ios 5.0.1. There is a way to install newer SDKs, but it may be flaky. Still, if your device has an OS newer that 5.0.1, then you require a newer SDK to debug on it.
 
1458279

1458279

Suspended
May 1, 2010
1,601
1,521
California
I think the legality of installing an OS on different hardware is unanswered. There is a question about if you legally purchase an OS, can you install it on the hardware you want.
It's like the question jail breaking an iOS device. If you legally purchase the device, are you required to run the OS that it comes with.

The EULA can be challenged, but I don't think it has. Saying that someone can buy something only if it runs on their hardware should be challenged.

Wrapper agreements have been challenged before and some have lost. Personally I don't see why Apple would care much about what their OS is running on, I think they care more about keeping their market position.
 
loon3y

loon3y

macrumors 65816
Oct 21, 2011
1,235
126
jnoxx said:
You can hire a Mac in the cloud to test it out first, so it's just visual.
there's a website specially called for that -> 'mac in the cloud' I think ;p
Or like other said, get a mac, or try to install a hackintosh on a partition of your pc.
Click to expand...




is there a good tutorial on how to install a mackintosh to my computer?


i just made a gaming rig a couple weeks ago, my first one, and id love to program on my PC with a 23" and not my 13" macbook pro.



i have 1.5 TB of space 512 SSD and 1TB of regular HDD



im gonna partition prob about 100 gigs to it.


also, can i use the app store in a Hackintosh
 
1458279

1458279

Suspended
May 1, 2010
1,601
1,521
California
Do a search for X86 or OSx86. I think it's better to run off a different drive. Drives are cheap, I run off old 500G and just power down, swap drives, boot.

So far everything works, Xcode, app store, everything.
 
J

j.benj

macrumors member
Jun 13, 2012
86
0
I'm starting to get into learning Objective-C and I've been through this process already. after a lot of searching and talking to people I've decided to just buy a Mac Mini for iOS dev. make my life easier.
 
loon3y

loon3y

macrumors 65816
Oct 21, 2011
1,235
126
KarlJay said:
Do a search for X86 or OSx86. I think it's better to run off a different drive. Drives are cheap, I run off old 500G and just power down, swap drives, boot.

So far everything works, Xcode, app store, everything.
Click to expand...




why do you recommend a different drive and not parsing?


is it because its not a common thing that it might destroy my hard drive?

i much rather partition it IF IT IS SAFE, i wouldn't want my HDD that i just bought go to waste. and i don't need 500 GB for the mac side nor do i need 1 full TB in my main OS,


so i wanted to just partition like 100 gigs for a hackintosh
 
1458279

1458279

Suspended
May 1, 2010
1,601
1,521
California
loon3y said:
why do you recommend a different drive and not parsing?

is it because its not a common thing that it might destroy my hard drive?

i much rather partition it IF IT IS SAFE, i wouldn't want my HDD that i just bought go to waste. and i don't need 500 GB for the mac side nor do i need 1 full TB in my main OS,

so i wanted to just partition like 100 gigs for a hackintosh
Click to expand...
Several on the hack forums suggested this as an easier approach, I had about 10 drives so plenty of spares.

I actually buy HD just for easy backup. Every so often I make a complete copy of things on a different HD just to be safe.

A 500G HD is what about $40~$50?

One thing I have to change in the BIOS for each boot is the ACHI vs IDE so I don't know if the board changes the way the OS sees the drive and if that matters once it's booted, but it wasn't worth the hassle.

Someone in the forums said there is a way to get Windows to work with ACHI, but it takes me about 20 seconds to change things... so I just deal with it.

I should say that I'm running Snow Leopard but they have updates to the booters so I think the Lion support is already out.

It sounds like you would be running an OS install on one drive or partition and install all the programs onto a separate drive/partition... this is a great idea and I used to do that, now I just dump all the OS and programs onto the one drive and make backups of the important stuff.
 
iMacFarlane

iMacFarlane

macrumors 65816
Apr 5, 2012
1,123
30
Adrift in a sea of possibilities
j.benj said:
I'm starting to get into learning Objective-C and I've been through this process already. after a lot of searching and talking to people I've decided to just buy a Mac Mini for iOS dev. make my life easier.
Click to expand...

^ THIS.

To the OP: The only reason I even bought a Mac two years ago was to get into iOS programming. I sprung for the beefed up 21.5" ($1499) because I hadn't bought a computer for a long while and wanted it to handle whatever I threw at it for a while. I had been a Microsoft devotee for over 18 years. I will never buy another Windows machine. Ever.

Just buy a Mac.

Mac Mini (use your monitor) - $600 if money's tight
iMac 21.5" - $1200-1500 if money's okay
iMac 27" - $1700 - $2000+ if money's no object

You won't regret your purchase, whichever route you choose!
 
J

j.benj

macrumors member
Jun 13, 2012
86
0
Little update. I finally did buy a Mac Mini to get started with iOS development. I picked up the cheapest one at Best Buy on sale for $568 (usually $599) and grabbed a $45 8GB RAM upgrade along with it. Up and running now with Xcode installed no problem.

I had hooked the Mac up to my 2nd monitor and kept my Win7 PC on the main monitor. It took me all of about 4 hours of playing with the Mac to switch them and make the Mac the main and the PC secondary. OSX is pretty cool, I must admit. I still need the PC since I paid for quite a bit of software for it that I don't have the money to re-buy for the Mac, but that'ok. Best of both worlds :)
 
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