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iOS

Posted by Alessandra Vaughn
Alessandra Vaughn
13,915 Points

I am on a PC. Am I still able to download the xcode so I can build an iPhone app?

I went to Apple and it seemed that I need the Mac App Store to download xcode. But I couldn't find a PC version of the Mac App Store. So can I not build an iPhone app on my PC?

1 Answer

William Li
PLUS
William Li
Courses Plus Student 26,868 Points
William Li
William Li
Courses Plus Student 26,868 Points

No, you can't, Xcode is for Mac only.

But there's other ways to get around this issue, there's things like MacinCloud that you can rent your Mac in the cloud a monthly fee.

Or if your PC has enough horsepower, you can install Mac as Virtual machine using VirtualBox, this approach is a bit more complicated than MacinCloud, because right now Apple distributes Mac OS X exclusively via its Mac AppStore, I don't know where you can legally find a Mac Install image to use for VirtualBox.

And lastly, there're things like Xamarin that allows you to skip Xcode all together, by using their toolsets, you can write the code once, and deploy to all 3 major mobile platforms with little effort. But that's probably not what you wanna do, cuz all Treehouse iOS courses are taught using Xcode, without it, you simply can't follow along the lectures.

Alessandra Vaughn
Alessandra Vaughn
13,915 Points

Thanks for the info!

Patrick Cooney
Patrick Cooney
12,216 Points

One thing to note, you actually cannot virtualize OS X. I mean in theory you can with some hacks but the OS X EULA states that OS X is only to be installed on Apple hardware. Also it takes a lot of doing to get OS X on a PC. You can get an older Mac on eBay for a decent price. When my old Macbook was too old to support the newest Xcode I bought a slightly less old Macbook to last me a few months until I had the money for a brand new one. If you can sacrifice like $300-$400 that might be just enough to get a mac to last you a while while you decide if you even like writing iOS apps. Also, Mac Minis start brand new at $500 if you don't mind a desktop.

William Li
William Li
Courses Plus Student 26,868 Points

Yeah, mac as Virtual Machine guest has very poor performance. The down side about getting an old Mac is that you don't know when it no longer able to install the latest OS X, given Apple's now aggressively making yearly release of new OS, remember, Apple never shy from abandoning support for legacy hardware, and Xcode is not useful unless you have the latest version. But I agree, getting a Mac mini is better choice.

Patrick Cooney
Patrick Cooney
12,216 Points

You can usually get updates for at least 3 years.