Important: A Mac is required to produce iOS apps for the Apple App Store

[avtutorials]

Another user asked if a Mac was required.  This is a sufficiently important topic, and I'm repeating my answer here for that reason.

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My equipment in this world: a Windows 7 PC and an iPod Touch 4. So, I asked myself the same question.

I read iOS Development With Flash, by Dolce (Visual Blueprint publishing). The book is about a year old, so some screenshots are out-of-date, because Apple changed things since the publishing. The book is excellent, though. It walks you through the entire process of creating an iOS app, especially for Windows users.

Here's the bottom line:

- Using Windows, you can do the development using Flash CS5.5.

- Using Windows,you can generate the certificates, provisioning files, etc. (it's not simple, but it's not hard).

- You have to have an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad to test your app on.

- Using Windows, you can use iTunes to transfer your app file from your PC to your device for testing.

- Using Windows, you can use iTunesConnect (the website that lets you specify all your app details to Apple for their App Store).

- YOU CANNOT UPLOAD YOUR APP FILE TO THE APP STORE WITHOUT A MAC!!!

Previously, Apple allowed you to upload your app using iTunesConnect, the website. THEY REMOVED THAT CAPABILITY.

Now, you must use Apple's Application Uploader (or whatever it's called) to upload your app file to the App Store (and, remember that Apple has to approve your app before they put it on their App Store).

The only way to get the Application Uploader, if I understand correctly, is to install the Apple Developer SDK. And, you can only install that SDK on a Mac.

So, this seems to be the last-ditch effort by Apple to force you to have a Mac to send your final app file to them for review and hopeful publishing on the the App Store.

If anyone knows otherwise, please correct this info.

[Guest]

Cant you get a mac simulator on your PC something like Boot Camp or the windows equivelent of it. I too develop on PC and that is the only thing I use a mac for, no plans for buying one either.

[avtutorials]

Mark, I'm not sure.  I'm not familiar with Boot Camp, or how to get a Mac simulator enabled on a Windows PC.  That's yet more learning curve and time, and I'd just as soon give Steve Jobs another $1,300 for one of his computers to make it "easy."

[TenchyMyo]

I develop apps for iPhone/iPad and Android, a buddy of mine upload the apps to these places. He's using a PC with Windows 7 and a Mac emulator. So you DO NOT need a mac to develop apps or upload them to the store. But most people think you do so Apple makes tons of money of off people buying macs

Just google it, that's what I did when I found out there's a mac emulator for PC that can upload the apps, then told my buddy who handled it....

[Colin Holgate]

You do need Mac OS I guess then. I'm curious how the Mac emulators work. Are those legal these days?

[GameViewPoint]

In my previous thread you said

I didn't mean the P12 file that Flash uses. There are developer and distribution certificates that get installed into Keychain Access on the Mac, that the various developer tools can directly read. My suspicion is that Application Loader reads those, as part of the process of seeing if you're entitled to be uploading anything to that account.

Is there any clarification on this? Because in this guide it seems to suggest doing the signing up on the PC, and then using something called openSSL, also at the bottom there is a comment which says...

Just a note that it’s possible that this tutorial needs to be updated to accomodate new requirements from Apple. I was able to gain access to a Mac and I can now install the test app just fine. I followed this tutorial word for word once then again from scratch and was never able to successfully install the app to my iPhone. I did notice that if I pull a certificate generated this way into Apple Keychain the option to export a key is not there. So that’s likely where the problem lies.

So at a very rough (I'm new to AIR and iOS) guess I'm thinking sign up on the Mac, test on the iPhone via itunes again on the mac, and when the game is done, submit via the mac, but I can develop via the Flash CS5.5/AIR/Windows and create the necessary files which I will then have to port across to the Mac for any kind of submission/testing (on an actual device) ??

[Colin Holgate]

You can test your IPAs just using Windows, either by using iTunes on Windows, or use the iPhone Configuration Utiulity. That lets you drag the IPA straight onto the device connected by USB.

It's here:

http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/enterprise/

[GameViewPoint]

I'm seriously thinking about changing my license over to a Mac one, and just doing everything on the Mac, right now it's looking a whole lot less hassle.

[boat5]

GameViewPoint wrote:

I'm seriously thinking about changing my license over to a Mac one, and just doing everything on the Mac, right now it's looking a whole lot less hassle.

yeah i would say it is, but you can always develp everything on windows and then perhaps just use a friends mac to do the final upload.

[boat5]

colin, i also question that. If you pay for vmware and you pay for macOS  i dont see how its illegal to run the os on a windows machine buti who knows with all apples pattents and TOS

[Colin Holgate]

A small amount of Googling suggests that it's not legal. When I wanted to install Windows under Parallels I had to buy the Ultimate version, that's the one required to be legal on virtual machines. With Mac OS there doesn't seem to be an equivalent level to make it legal.

[MJD1981]

Not only a Mac but a specific Mac! I sought out one with OS X 10.5.6 based on the supposed minimum requirements of 10.5.3, and now I'm being told I need to upgrade to 10.6.8 every step of the way. My question now is how much can I achieve on Leopard instead of Snow Leopard? Is there an older version of Application Loader that will work?

I've had my finished IPAs for weeks now, and the effort that's going into simply uploading them is extraordinary.

[Guest]

Apple has a way of complicating everything, there is no reason why we should be going through these hoops to upload a self contained ipa file. This could all be done through a web portal or an ftp loader like all the android markets do now. But to actually answer your question, yes you should be able to do this through an older version of application loader, at work we use a mac from about 4 years ago with whatever system was around back then and we are still able to upload with it.

[MJD1981]

Apple's official advice is to download the latest SDK, which is yet another step that's not possible with Leopard. I understand SDK 3.1 is as far as that goes, and you don't start seeing the Application Loader until 3.2. Can anyone correct me on that before I waste a few hours downloading an SDK that won't work???

[iBr3nt]

Snow Leopard will give you the latest Xcode version 4.2, though it

requires an Intel-based Mac. Just be warned that Apple is really pushing

Lion for all the latest dev tools, so eventually you may run into that

requirement sooner rather than later.

iBrent

[MJD1981]

Apple have conceded to me that the system requirements are indeed Snow Leopard now, and will no doubt become Lion as iBrent suggests. I just wish I would stop seeing "10.5.3" fraudulently paraded in the literature.