Iphone App Development

floydmoon1

Hope ye can help me with one or two questions I have.

1. Do I need a Mac computer to run the software for Iphone development.
2.If I do will all Maca of the last few years work and could ye recommend a decent machine that I could pickup second hand.
3.Does anyone know any books/websites that will teach me the coding needed.

Thanks in advance.

Evil Phil

I can only answer the first question, yes you need a mac to do the development. There is a replacement BIOS chip you can get for pc's that allows you to run OSX on a pc but its very hacky and I wouldn't trust it for dev work.

synacron trion

1. Do I need a Mac computer to run the software for Iphone development.
Yes. You can only develop iPhone apps on a Mac.

2.If I do will all Maca of the last few years work and could ye recommend a decent machine that I could pickup second hand.
It has to be an Intel Mac and you'll need adequate RAM too. Best way to go is prob to buy a new Macbook Pro. I am developing on the new 13inch Macbook Pro.

3.Does anyone know any books/websites that will teach me the coding needed.
Ya, there are a few books. Search Amazon.

fullerand

Correction to the above replies: you can only do iPhone dev on Mac *OS*. Mac OS X can happily run on PC hardware... albeit not entirely legally.

Oh and if you want some useful books to search for, check out "Beginning iPhone 3 Development" by Mark LaMarche... or in fact "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X" by Hillegass for a more general introduction to Cocoa.

kayos

synacron trion wrote: »

1. Do I need a Mac computer to run the software for Iphone development.
Yes. You can only develop iPhone apps on a Mac.

2.If I do will all Maca of the last few years work and could ye recommend a decent machine that I could pickup second hand.
It has to be an Intel Mac and you'll need adequate RAM too. Best way to go is prob to buy a new Macbook Pro. I am developing on the new 13inch Macbook Pro.

This just stinks to me, so your on the same hardware architecture as a Windows type computer but you have to use the apple produced hardware?

I just can not see any technical reason for this. The reason that jumps out at me is Apple trying to generate sales. Wonder if the EU have looked at this, never mind the whole apps store and apple dictating what can or can not be used on a phone that is fully owned by an end user.

Evil Phil

fullerand wrote: »

Correction to the above replies: you can only do iPhone dev on Mac *OS*. Mac OS X can happily run on PC hardware... albeit not entirely legally.

I hate to be pedantic but didn't I already pretty much say that? I suppose there's one exception. I haven't run OS X on a pc personally but I've looked into it and the solution I looked at was a hardware hack. Would you recommend a hacked box for development though? Doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

Martyr

You could always use vmware to run MAC, Qemu is capable of running MAC OSX too.

Might be worth checking out leo4all too, but i can't say which way is best.

floydmoon1

Thanks for all the help so far lads.

Was looking to get a second hand powerbook G5.Is this Intel based.

Also does it take long and is it difficult to learn the code.I did c for two years in college.

Also have any of ye made any money out of yer iphone apps.

Evil Phil

I have to say it has suprised me that they didn't release and SDK for Windows. If your going to be doing commercial development I would suggest that it should be done on a fully licensed mac machine, it would avoid possible legal hassles with Apple.

ironclaw

This post has been really informative for myself. I started using xCode but I have zilcho programming experience.

Could anyone give me the name of a good book to start Mac development? I have no experience and any book I've glanced at assumes prior knowledge. iPhone development is my primary aim. Thanks!

Evil Phil

If I were you I'd just focus on learning how to program for now, worry about the iPhone specific stuff at a later date.

Tabcan.

I'm in the market for an iPhone and mac for development.

The cheapest way I figure is to go onto ebay.

- iPhone 2G (possibly scratched/dented)
- iBook G7 with Tiger
- Snow Leopard (€29 from Mac Store). Yes, it will upgrade to Snow Leopard from Tiger

What's this business about *requiring* an Intel processor? Anyone know any more about this?

I'm developing Windows mobile apps currently. Moving to develop the app on Android next week and will eventually need to develop it for iPhone. Looks like I'm gonna have three different machines and three different OSs!

aidan_walsh

Snow Leopard requires an Intel processor, as in is not compiled for, or will not install on PPC hardware like a G4. XCode builds for Snow Leopard are the same.

synacron trion

Tabcan. wrote: »

I'm developing Windows mobile apps currently. Moving to develop the app on Android next week and will eventually need to develop it for iPhone. Looks like I'm gonna have three different machines and three different OSs!

You can develop Android apps on a Mac. I have used Eclipse on Leopard and successfully written some sample android apps. If you got a good enough Macbook you could virtualise Windows for your WinMob development (if they can't be developed on a Mac)

So, in essence, you actually only need one machine and possibly 2 OSes (1 virtualised)

Tabcan.

aidan_walsh wrote: »

Snow Leopard requires an Intel processor, as in is not compiled for, or will not install on PPC hardware like a G4. XCode builds for Snow Leopard are the same.

I don't believe this is the case. Are you 100% certain that Snow Leopard requires an Intel?

There are reports all over the web that Tiger can be upgraded to Snow Leopard using the installation DVD available at Apple Stores. I presume these Tiger machines are not using Intel processors.

Tabcan.

synacron trion wrote: »

You can develop Android apps on a Mac. I have used Eclipse on Leopard and successfully written some sample android apps. If you got a good enough Macbook you could virtualise Windows for your WinMob development (if they can't be developed on a Mac)

So, in essence, you actually only need one machine and possibly 2 OSes (1 virtualised)

Yeah, but I'm a linux head... I only develop on other platforms because their proprietary code forces me to

synacron trion

Tabcan. wrote: »

I don't believe this is the case. Are you 100% certain that Snow Leopard requires an Intel?

There are reports all over the web that Tiger can be upgraded to Snow Leopard using the installation DVD available at Apple Stores. I presume these Tiger machines are not using Intel processors.

"Upgrading from Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger. If your Intel-based Mac is running Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, purchase the Mac Box Set, which is a single, affordable package that includes Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard; iLife ’09, with the latest versions of iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, and iDVD; and iWork ’09, Apple’s productivity suite for home and office including Pages, Numbers, and Keynote."


From http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html


They said it in some keynote ages ago that snow leopard will NOT run on power pc chips. Can't remember which one though.

Tabcan.

I guess the solution is a G4 with just Leopard.

fullerand

Tabcan. wrote: »

I guess the solution is a G4 with just Leopard.

Not sure if you're moved away from the OP, but for the iPhone SDK you need an Intel Mac.

Unless this works out for you... http://3by9.com/85/

Tabcan.

fullerand wrote: »

Not sure if you're moved away from the OP, but for the iPhone SDK you need an Intel Mac.

Unless this works out for you... http://3by9.com/85/

*bangs head off desk*

Ok, so what is the cheapest mac you can buy for iPhone dev? Mac mini?

Sparks

floydmoon1 wrote: »

Also does it take long and is it difficult to learn the code.I did c for two years in college.

Well, the question of "were you any good at it" springs to mind, but that's rather uncharitable
But put it to you this way - going from C to Objective-C is somewhat easier than going from C to C++ (or at least it was for me, YMMV). The extra parts of the language are minimal. The main thing is the mindset change, because you're moving to an object-oriented language (and a late-binding family one at that). If you can grok that, the rest is just syntax.

Tabcan. wrote: »

I'm in the market for an iPhone and mac for development.
The cheapest way I figure is to go onto ebay.
- iPhone 2G (possibly scratched/dented)

Do you actually need the iPhone or could you get by on an iPod Touch might be a question to consider. Same platform, more or less. Unless you're using something very iPhone-specific, you might save some money that way.

Tabcan. wrote: »

Ok, so what is the cheapest mac you can buy for iPhone dev? Mac mini?

Yes, and they're more or less okay, if you don't mind being stuck with a single monitor for dev work or waiting for compile cycles.

dny123456

kayos wrote: »

I just can not see any technical reason for this. The reason that jumps out at me is Apple trying to generate sales. Wonder if the EU have looked at this, never mind the whole apps store and apple dictating what can or can not be used on a phone that is fully owned by an end user.

Apple is a hardware company, not a software company. If they allowed people to run their OS on other architectures it would mean a loss of revenue for them. Remember they tried and failed with the Mac clones under Gil Amelio? Thats why u are not encouraged to run Mac Os on PC

padraigmyers

I have been happily developing for the iPhone on a PC for the last few months.
You can install Mac OS on a PC (though your not legally allowed to do this), it takes a bit of work, but once its up and running, its stable. There is no hardware hack needed (as someone said above). There are many different distributions of OSX86 (Mac OS on PC hardware), the one I am using is iPC, and I've had no problem with it. Its running Leopard 10.5.6

If you want to distribute applications in the AppStore you will need to join the Developer Program, this costs $99 a year, but you can download and use the SDK without paying this.

If you want to get in there an learn about coding for the iPhone, this would be the cheapest way of going about it. Install MacOS on you PC and then download and use the iPhone SDK for free. If you feel after this that you want to go ahead and distribute some of you apps, then go join the developer programme. Buying a Mac is something that you can do if you feel like it, however you can distribute your apps from a Hackintosh (PC running Mac) without any problems.

The iPhone SDK that you download comes with an iPhone simulator that will let you see how your app would work on an iPhone. The simulator is very good, so in effect, you don't even need an iPhone to develop for the iPhone!

I don't understand the point made earlier of not using a Hackintosh as a development machine, as long as you back up your code you have nothing to lose. If it dies on you, you can just install the OS again, if you've used windows this is something you may have experienced before!

As for how difficult it is to code for the iPhone, the first step is to lean Objective-C, if you know C or C++ already, then its very similar once you get used to the different syntax. You can install an Objective C compiler on your PC and tinker around with it first.

Developing the UI's for the iPhone is pretty easy, you use a tool called Interface Builder which makes it just a drag and drop procedure. However the framework of how application are structured will take a bit of getting used to, but it all makes good sense. There is a very good book called Beginning iPhone Development that has just been updated for firmware 3.0 that's a good starting point for learning the ropes, however you'll need to have some idea of Objective C before you tackle any iPhone development. There also plenty of tutorials out there for free as well.

Hope this helps.