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Hello-World iOS App in Assembly

(gist.github.com)
168 points pabs3 | 1 comments | 30 Oct 25 02:37 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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ChrisMarshallNY ◴[30 Oct 25 09:59 UTC] No.45758172[source]▶
Very cool, if impractical (it’s likely that you’d never get an ASM app through the App Store Approval process).

ARM Assembly is a much more Byzantine creature, than the old 8- and 16-bit versions I used, way back in the Pleistocene.

I’m always a fan of starting from the “bare metal,” to learn, but these days, it’s a long trip. When I was just a wee sprog, it was only a couple of steps away.

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Ecco ◴[30 Oct 25 12:43 UTC] No.45759401[source]▶
How would that impact the App Store approval? AFAIK they review binaries anyway…
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ChrisMarshallNY ◴[30 Oct 25 12:52 UTC] No.45759490[source]▶
They do, but ASM doesn't have the guardrails that the compiled languages have, so it's almost certain that private APIs would get accessed.
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1. zffr ◴[30 Oct 25 15:24 UTC] No.45761070{3}[source]▶
> so it's almost certain that private APIs would get accessed

No it's not. Just like with ObjC or Swift, in ASM you have to be explicit about the APIs you want to call. I don't see how you would accidentally call a private API in ASM.

IMO the bigger risk is attempting to call a method that does not actually exist. ObjC or Swift would protect you from that, but ASM would not and may just crash at runtime.