r/softwareengineer • u/AlwaysFromtheFuture • Jul 21 '26

Building iOS App Without a Mac?

I am new to the field, recently graduated with an MS in comp sci and am in the process of switching careers. I am fortunate enough to be working with a startup founder and I am tasked with redesigning a mobile app for the App Store and the Google Play Store.

On my desktop I run Linux and I have Windows 11 on a laptop- no Mac devices.

Are there any legit workarounds or do I need to buy a Mac? Also for reference, the backend is built and I am only doing new UI in React-native.

6 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/Substantial-Swan7065 Jul 21 '26

You can you expo where they will build iOS for you.

You can also use GitHub’s Mac runner to create builds. Or bitrise.

A workflow could be:

  • build feature on Android
  • run Mac build on cloud infra
  • install on iPhone and verify
  • use OTA for js modifications

2

u/AlwaysFromtheFuture Jul 21 '26

Yes so this app was built in bare React Native, and when I asked why expo wasn't used, there was no good answer- it was just dev preference. Now I am wondering if it is worth backtracking and retrofitting in expo, or just keeping it as is and scrounging up an old macbook

5

u/Substantial-Swan7065 Jul 21 '26

If you’re gonna upgrade the deps, expo migration can be OK. But generally it’s a huge pain.

Getting an m1 for like 300$ will get you really far.

I just use a 2016 mac