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Build an iOS app on Linux or Windows

(xtool.sh)
168 points todsacerdoti | 11 comments | 25 Jun 25 01:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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malloc-0x90 ◴[25 Jun 25 05:23 UTC] No.44373871[source]▶
Never built on Apple, last time I tried:

it asked me to update Xcode;

Xcode asked me to update the OS first;

and the OS asked me to buy a new 1300$€ MacBook hardware (with similar specs, the one I was using wasn't even that old/slow).

So to quote Rick and Morty i though: "That's just subscription with extra steps!" - and made a windows program and an Android app.

replies(3): >>44373921 #>>44374083 #>>44374885 #
zombot ◴[25 Jun 25 05:34 UTC] No.44373921[source]▶
Exactly. Apparently Apple still finds enough idiots who perform that dance, but they've lost me. I can only hope others will follow and xtool looks like it can help.
replies(4): >>44374159 #>>44374571 #>>44374596 #>>44374816 #
1. can16358p ◴[25 Jun 25 07:33 UTC] No.44374571[source]▶
Don't worry, those "idiots" are doing perfectly fine with great salaries and a nice developer experience who apparently figured out using archaic hardware for developing newer devices is practically pointless even if there were software support.
replies(4): >>44374880 #>>44375370 #>>44375404 #>>44377178 #
2. touwer ◴[25 Jun 25 08:23 UTC] No.44374880[source]▶
I wouldn't call XCode a nice developer experience. Hell comes closer
replies(1): >>44374985 #
3. croes ◴[25 Jun 25 08:42 UTC] No.44374985[source]▶
Stockholm syndrome
4. Daedren ◴[25 Jun 25 09:45 UTC] No.44375370[source]▶
I've developed a lot of iOS apps for over a decade and have yet to see any semblance of the "nice developer experience" you're mentioning.
replies(1): >>44384931 #
5. realusername ◴[25 Jun 25 09:49 UTC] No.44375404[source]▶
Good salary for sure but as for the developer experience, the iOS tooling is one of the worst you can have in the modern era. I'd even pick the nodejs anarchy over xcode and that says a lot.
6. hu3 ◴[25 Jun 25 13:35 UTC] No.44377178[source]▶
There are great salaries in all spectrums of technology.

As for calling XCode a "nice developer experience", I can only attribute to stockholm syndrome, lack of experience with better tools or both.

replies(1): >>44384954 #
7. can16358p ◴[26 Jun 25 07:04 UTC] No.44384931[source]▶
I don't use Xcode anymore in practice (Vscode+React Native here) yet back in the ObjC+storyboard days I loved storyboard and general expressiveness of Objective-C.

Sure it had quirks (codesigning issues, weird errors from underlying C-level calls, ObjC "primitives" bot playing nicely with C primitives without boxing etc.) but I generally loved the experience especially around WYSIWYG of storyboards.

replies(2): >>44395880 #>>44399125 #
8. can16358p ◴[26 Jun 25 07:08 UTC] No.44384954[source]▶
It's a matter of taste then. As a fullstack dev I still end up loving how Xcode cleanly represents things visually even though I'm not using it much other than building step anymore.

I already could jump to other stuff if I didn't like it, the reason I kept using it because I simply liked the experience, at least to my personal taste of seeing things.

If you think having a different personal taste is "stockholm syndrome" I don't have much else to say though.

replies(1): >>44386962 #
9. hu3 ◴[26 Jun 25 12:53 UTC] No.44386962{3}[source]▶
Perhaps it doesn't crash for you but...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

10. zombot ◴[27 Jun 25 11:22 UTC] No.44395880{3}[source]▶
> back in the ObjC+storyboard days

That must have been on very, very archaic hardware, by your own words.

11. Daedren ◴[27 Jun 25 18:35 UTC] No.44399125{3}[source]▶
Until you got to code review a coworker's storyboard. The underlying XML was absolutely horrible to deal with.

Simply opening a storyboard without editing anything would also trigger file changes. I'm glad storyboards are gone.