18 replies to this topic

[Taylor Ringo]

I know this question has been asked for a while but I wanted to know what are my options for native iOS game programming on windows? I would like to know if anyone use Macincloud, it is a Rental service where you rent a mac over the cloud.

[alnite]

iOS development is always done on a mac, not Windows. Apple never made their SDK available for Windows. I haven't used Macincloud, but I wouldn't suggest doing that. When you sign up to be an Apple Developer, you are required to sign your build before you can put that on a device or release it to the market. This key needs to be stored on your machine, and you would need to connect your iPhone to the actual physical machine before you can test your app. You can't do that over the cloud.

[6677]

Ask around friends and stuff, hit ebay, just see can you trace down an older working mac (think it must be intel based though) for a decent price. You can then use it for iOS development and when not developing on iOS, well, second computer?

You can get the mac mini for a decent price second hand, you'll need a monitor and keyboard but its so small that it might make a nice HTPC as a secondary use.

[RGBA++]

Use marmalade SDK. You wont regret it. It has around 15 game ready modules from skeletal animation to font rendering, 3ds max exporters, tools to deploy to ios, android, blackberry and windows phone 8 + more and a great simulator.

[LordRhys]

Monogame also has the means to convert your code for iOS, program in C# using SHarpDX or XNA and port.

[6677]

Monogame also has the means to convert your code for iOS, program in C# using SHarpDX or XNA and port.

You need the monotouch license at $399 per year plus a mac to use monogame on iOS

[frob]

I don't believe there are any sanctioned methods to develop an iOS app for the app store where you can develop entirely on Windows.

There are many cross-platform engines and tools, but I believe that ultimately each of these needs to go through Apple's official utilities on their hardware.

[6677]

I'm yet to see one that can do it outside of OSX, even marmalade I believe needs to be running on OSX in order to get the iOS button, same for unity3d.

There are ways of developing for jailbroken iphones on windows but then your losing the app store and cutting off your market substantially plus you run the risk of bricking your phone.

Random vote down for stating a fact, wtf...

Edited by 6677, 13 December 2012 - 04:01 PM.

[Chad Smith]

This was about two years ago so I do not remember what I did or what I had to do, but back when I was a paid developer I read about Marmalde so I wanted to see i it was possible to get an app running on a real device using only Windows. Their was some tutorial back then that talked you through it. Again I don't remember it though I think it was really a "hack" that allowed it. Because of this I never did use Marmalade on Windows to develop an App or officially send it into Apple.

I would look into a used Mac Mini and just use it as your development machine for iOS. Plus I always feel it could be good to have another computer around like that as maybe you will want to create something that runs on both Windows and Mac. Be a good test machine.

[6677]

Can you use old powerPC based macs? looking on ebay you can get one for under £100.

[frob]

Can you use old powerPC based macs? looking on ebay you can get one for under £100.

That ability was removed in iPhone SDK 3.0.

[6677]

Yeah, I just checked it out, apparently it now requires an intel mac (although you can get early intel mac mini's cheap aswell).

[Taylor Ringo]

hey does it matter if I have snow leopard machine? or do I just need an Intel Mac OS X 10.6 ?

[smr]

If you do go the cheap-used-mac-on-ebay route, make sure it will run Snow Leopard first. That's the current minimum OSX requirement.

[6677]

snow leopard machine? or do I just need an Intel Mac OS X 10.6 ?

Snow leopard IS OSX 10.6
Apple give all OSX versions a numeric version (10.6 in this case) and then a "nickname" which will always be the name of a large cat, 10.4 for example was tiger I believe.

[Kiada]

I was in your predicament. Spent all yesterday getting a Hackintosh up and running, works great with Unity. Also, for development you can use Jailcoder to 'sign' your apps so you don't need to pay the $99 Apple Developer license until you're ready to release.

Actually getting the Hackintosh up and running was a pain in the backside, but it's do-able if you have fairly common bits in your PC (and an intel processor) - saved money on buying a Mac anyways!

[6677]

A theoretically plausible method although I think discussing jailbreaks and breaking of EULA's are against the forum rules.


Anyway, this is purely an example I found, not a recommendation to buy this particular one.
First result for intel mac on ebay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Apple-Mac-Mini-Desktop-2GB-INTEL-CORE-2-DUO-1-83GHZ-A1176-/140896963796?pt=UK_Computing_Apple_Desktops_CV&hash=item20ce1d0cd4
2gb RAM, 1.83ghz dual core intel CPU, 80gb HDD and running OSX 10.7 lion all for £150 + postage. Its not exactly powerful but the mini is very neat and compact, paired up with a wireless keyboard they make excellent HTPC's as they are very quiet, plus you can get them cheap on ebay. Certainly more than powerful enough for deploying iOS apps.

That particular bid ends very soon and I don't know what country you are in but it shows very nicely what you can find on ebay. There are quite a few listed actually.

[jwezorek]

Legally, you can use Marmalade and develop the entire application on Windows but to actually

1. deploy to a device
2. publish to the app store

you need to pay to become a licensed Apple developer and own or at least have access to a Mac.

 

The only exception I know to this is that there's a commercial game framework called Dragon Fire SDK that claims to let you do everything from Windows by, I believe, basically building and deploying your game for you. I have no idea if the Dragon Fire thing actually works, how good their framework is, etc. but my gut feeling is that it looks a little shoddy.

 

So, you know, the bottom line is that if you want to write to iOS buy a Mac Mini and a KVM switch. None of these crossplatform frameworks are perfect. You will need to do lots of testing on a real device so even the do-everything-on-windows-with-marmalade-and-get-your-friend-with-a-mac-to-deploy-for-you-when-you're-done option isn't really realistic in my opinion. Maybe for a very basic game.

Edited by jwezorek, 30 December 2012 - 05:51 PM.

[HAM]

To eventually deploy the app you are probably going to need a Mac. But for development there are several options. Marmalade, unity, UDK, etc.. You can develop on windows with all those.