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General Discussion

Posted by Vesone Dean
Vesone Dean
5,617 Points

Owning the mobile device you're making apps for...?

Hello good people of treehouse!

I've researched this question for about a week and for some reason I can't find anything...

If you're developing apps for let's say iOS do you need to own the actual device to be an effective developer?

Context: I have an android phone and want to start making mobile apps. I'm trying to decide what my FIRST language will be, even though I've done the basics for a little of everything (Ruby, Javascript, Java, Swift, etc.) I really like the tools for Swift and want to make learning iOS my first mission...but I don't own an iPhone.

I have a mac but I keep hearing that emulators are great but you need the actual device to see how it works.

So back to my question, if you're a mobile developer how many of these (iOS devices) do you own to test on? I would imagine that you also need to keep the mobile plans up too, just to do real world tests.

Thanks for any help folks :)

1 Answer

Lewis Cowles
Lewis Cowles
74,902 Points
Lewis Cowles
Lewis Cowles
74,902 Points

If you have a mac, I would suggest you can dev on that, and in the worst case buy a second-owner device from a store. At the end of the day, even a new iPhone is likely less on contract than Treehouse subscription if you have good credit and a device to trade-up, so once you feel confident, you can deploy to that to test for hardware features.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/IDEs/Conceptual/iOS_Simulator_Guide/TestingontheiOSSimulator.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40012848-CH4-SW1

Vesone Dean
Vesone Dean
5,617 Points

Thanks Lewis!

Didn't actually think about the trade-up scenario...I guess it's years of waiting for 2 years to get a new phone that conditioned me to believing that.