iOS Play iPhone apps in the SDK simulator

[Metal Dice]

Is it, or will it be possible to try out other people's apps in the iphone simulator (in the SDK.) Would apple allow that. Or would it be illegal if possibly.
Of course if it was a paid app i would pay for it to try it out ind the simulator.

 

[Troglodyte]

No, it's not possible. Apps for the simulator are compiled for intel processors and apps for the actual device are compiled for arm processors. Even if you bought the app it simply won't run.

 

[firewood]

It is possible to try out builds of developer's apps which are compiled for the iPhone Simulator (of the same version as yours).

These are completely different apps than the ones which run on an iPhone, or which are found in the App store, as they are compiled for a different CPU architecture. So you'd have to get folders containing these apps directly from the developer. And the developer would have to dig the folders containing these apps out of their Simulator's Library directory (the directory names are mangled).

 

[poisenedapple]

i've been wondering about this topic too..

It is possible to try out builds of developer's apps which are compiled for the iPhone Simulator (of the same version as yours).

These are completely different apps than the ones which run on an iPhone, or which are found in the App store, as they are compiled for a different CPU architecture. So you'd have to get folders containing these apps directly from the developer. And the developer would have to dig the folders containing these apps out of their Simulator's Library directory (the directory names are mangled).

What developers offer this?

 

[sammich]

Sure you can, provided:

1. The developer of the app gives you their entire xcode project to you to compile and run in the Simulator AND
2. The app doesn't use OpenGL

 

[dejo]

2. The app doesn't use OpenGL

OpenGL seems to work okay for me in the Simulator.

 

[firewood]

Sure you can, provided:
1. The developer of the app gives you their entire xcode project to you to compile and run in the Simulator

Not Necessary.

If you are running the same version of the iPhone SDK, the developer can simply send you the contents of their

~/Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/

directory (use zip or Finder compress), which does not contain any xcode projects or source code. This directory will just contain the intel-compiled app bundles that the dev has run in that Simulator. If the dev only wants to send out one app, they should delete all other apps from their Simulator first.

This is very handy for beta testing apps, as long as you don't care about realistic device performance. No provisioning or using up the devs 100 UDID's required.

 

[PhoneyDeveloper]

I came across this blog post recently

http://furbo.org/2008/11/12/the-final-test/

Its purpose is to allow testing of your own distribution executable by resigning the bundle. I haven't tried it but it might be possible to resign apps to make them run on the device. Effectively this is ad hoc distribution but without using the 100 UUIDs from apple.

 

[firewood]

Re-codesigning might work with another knowledgeable registered developer.

But since the SDK is a free (after accepting the license agreement) download, the Simulator library transfer method will work for beta testers and reviewers who aren't registered iPhone developers, even random Mac users who don't even have a iPhone or iPod Touch.