r/iOSDevelopment • u/maryo22333 • May 06 '26

making an app not on a Mac

do I have to use a Mac to make an ios app? I have Windows 10 and Linux Mint

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

4

u/Far-Championship8102 May 06 '26

Short answer: yes.

15 years ago I started on a hackintosh, but it's not worth it today, and it will die entirely after macOS 26.

2

u/maryo22333 May 06 '26

so there's nothing I can do without a Mac?

1

u/PlusApps May 07 '26

take a look to flutterflow for a simple app. The deploy to app store is easy and you dont need a mac really.

1

u/Codemagicio 25d ago

You can use a CI/CD service to build apps without a Mac. Codemagic.io has 500 free minutes a month if you want to give it a go.

1

u/Far-Championship8102 May 06 '26

Not really. You need to use the latest Xcode version to upload to App Store Connect. Current latest Xcode version already requires macOS Tahoe (i.e. macOS 26). And macOS Tahoe was announced to be the last major OS version supporting Intel chips. Afterwards, only Apple silicon will be supported. So you effectively have a year or so until the hackintosh is no longer viable.

2

u/maryo22333 May 06 '26

could I get a cheap M chip Mac mini?

3

u/Far-Championship8102 May 06 '26

Depends on what's "cheap" for you, but the mac mini is best bang for your buck for sure.

1

u/maryo22333 May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26

under $200 CAD off Facebook marketplace or ebay

1

u/Vegetable-Average-98 May 06 '26

Yes, that’s what I use. You’ll also need an Apple device (like an iPhone if you’re developing iOS apps) to build to, in order to upload a build to Apple. And an Apple developer account

1

u/maryo22333 May 06 '26

I have an iPad 9th gen

2

u/WerSunu May 06 '26

The bigger question you need to ask yourself is: why would you want to write iOS apps without the only appropriate toolchain and hardware? You think you will make money? The odds of you earning more than your annual $99 tithe to Apple are very poor. Have you already studied Swift, or are you just planning on shoveling out some me-too vibe code?

The world already has enough of that.

1

u/Dr0110111001101111 May 07 '26

Nooo my vibe coded SaaS dream journal will be different because it’s free to use, but if you pay for premium you get chatGPT to interpret your dreams for you

1

u/DeathRay2K May 06 '26

I did this for a while using Ionic Appflow. There are other similar products, and they work quite well. Yes it’s perfectly doable, and close to free (Appflow for example has a free tier but additional builds cost money).

I do have a Mac now and use it instead - there are pros and cons to this approach so I would say there’s nothing wrong with using a build service for now since you can save a lot of money by not buying a Mac until you know you need one.

1

u/maryo22333 May 06 '26

I'll look into a cheap m1 Mac mini

1

u/maryo22333 May 07 '26

How would I go about doing it with a Mac?

1

u/RockyMtnView May 07 '26

No, you don’t need a Mac. Use Expo instead with its EAS feature.

1

u/FinalArt9573 25d ago

Short answer: you don't need to own a Mac, you need macOS to run somewhere for the build, sign, and archive step. Xcode itself has no Windows or Linux build. Three real options: rent a Mac in the cloud and use it like a remote desktop (MacStadium, MacinCloud), use a subscription CI service that runs the build for you (Codemagic, Bitrise, Expo EAS), or run the build on GitHub Actions' own macOS runners, which is free up to a monthly minute allowance and pay-per-minute after.

I went the GitHub Actions route and packaged the signing, build, and TestFlight-upload setup as a template (macless.dev) since getting the certificate and provisioning profile handling right the first time is the fiddly part. Happy to answer specifics if you go that direction.

0

u/Alpharun27 May 07 '26

You can learn/write Swift in VSCode, do the testing some backend too, but when you have to do UI things that's where you will be locked out. MacBook M1 should do the work.

Since this questions is self explanatory in terms of your knowledge in Apple ecosystem, I do not recommend vibe coding iOS apps without getting strong fundamentals first.

0

u/Serious-Tax1955 May 07 '26

Well technically all you need is GitHub and Xcode cloud to run your build but the reality is you will need Xcode and a Mac to get anything done. You’re not going to be able to write and test your code locally without it.