iOS development support on PC

I apologize if this has been answered before - I'm new here and didn't find the issue addressed...

I realize that Ansca has made Corona available (at least in Beta form) for the PC in terms of developing apps for Android; but will (and when will) Corona offer the ability to develop apps for iOS on the PC?

The answer short and sweet is no. You need Apple's SDK to produce iOS apps which only runs on a MAC.

However, Corona SDK itself is cross-platform, so there's nothing stopping you from creating an iOS game on a Windows machine -- except that you'll need a Mac for the last step (creating the actual build for the App Store).

So you can develop your app on Windows, but to make it an actual iOS file you'll need a Mac (or someone with a Mac) plus an Apple Developer license ($99 a year).

Jay

I'm also with the same question..

I'm understand about last step of build ... but why not to allo developers to see their apps in simulator as iPhone or iPad ... i't has a different resolutions and so on, so it's not so convinient to develop a game using a PC. I'm not familiar with Mac, but I can build the app using xcode, but it's much more easer for me to write all code and test on PC and when build the project on mac.

Don't quote me on this but I believe I read somewhere that Ansca were planning on adding the ability to set up generic devices in the simulator with custom resolutions.

it'll be excelent!

I am working on my iphone/android game on my windows laptop since I don't have a mac machine around me all the time. If you want to develop for iphone. specify the widths to be 320*480. Use droid or nexus emulator and in the config file make sure you don't scale it:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
application =
{
        content =
        {
                width = 320,
                height = 480,
                scale = "none"
        },
} 

@grahamranson : yes, we are looking at doing that.

C.

@aman Thanks for the tip!
I am definitely going to start using this on my PC to develop for iPhone and perhaps iPad too if setting width*height to 1024*768 will work.

@carlos looking forward to being able to use the PC with a built-in iPhone and iPad simulator. I use a Mac for my development, but I'm having my 11 year old learn Corona now on my old PC and he wants to make apps that he can test on his iPhone. =)

The unreal development kit is Windows only and allows for IOS and Android builds.

UDK uses LLVM to do that but its a serious gray area cause developers violate their contract by using it and apple could void your contract, kicking your company out of appstore forever for such actions.

By the time UDK gets its in works OSX version I would assume that windows will no longer be able to deploy to iOS, because the windows build has one major limitation: you can not add native code to use iOS functionality not integrated, which is a major drawback for UDK over competition (one that wouldn't hit Corona given it gets native code support for its mobile platforms due to iOS OSX only focus)

Ah so it’s more a legal grey area then illegal to do. But games like infinity blade were created with the UDK and Apple have shown it in many of the advertisements. Surely Epic and Apple have worked something out, maybe Ansca could do the same :-)

It's not really.

Dragonfiresdk allows you to develop and build ios apps from a windows machine by using a build server (they have mac build servers, and a staff member builds your app after you submit your developer profile to them and certs) .

It isn't anywhere near as powerful or featured as corona, however no apps have been rejected or such that have been created with it.

Not promoting dragonfire or anything, just saying it has and IS being done so ....

Great post. I too use DragonFireSDK (no app in the store yet) but I wish that Corona could you the same concept by having a Mac server to build iPhone apps in Windows. Of course I do not know how difficult to do so it may not be readable. I will hate to get a Mac mini just for building the app but that just me. It is great if you already have a Mac around.

Cheers.

Mo

After testing the build process for my sample app, I thought even corona builds the app on remote server and sends the binary back to our MAC, or am I wrong?

chinmay.patil - you are correct that the app is built on the Corona servers and sent back to you, however you still need the latest version of Xcode installed, correct certificates and a provisioning profile and, of course, you need App Loader to send your app to Apple.

I've been using the DragonFire SDK since it was in private beta a long time ago - none of my apps have been rejected (although a few other ones have - but only for guideline violations).

To be honest - Whilst I LOVE coding in C/C++ just the shear number of extra features and api's available to Corona is making me jump ship and scale down my DFSDK efforts (in App was the final straw - and android as well - it's a no brainer).

I'm fortunate that I do have access to a Mac for the final build / submission process, but I do love to code on my PC and generally just set up an "iphone / ipad like" resolution using the method suggested above and just use either the droid or galaxy tab skins and get on with it.

Thanks Corona IMHO you guys provide me with the best of both worlds!

Jon...

views:2761 update:2011/9/17 17:35:52
corona forums © 2003-2011