Creating IPhone Apps On Linux (without Xcode and MacOS X)

Consulting several experts iPhone platform, it still fails in the search for alternative development for the APPLE devices on Linux. But deep Cortex-A8 is an ARM processor, so let this document using llvm-gcc-4.2 compiler for the Darwin-Arm architecture, thus allowing you to create binaries for APPLE devices from C / C ++ sources and obj C.

By: Alessandro de Oliveira Faria (AKA HAIR)

We will see in this document to develop applications for the APPLE devices (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad) without the need to obtain the super owner set (Mac OS X, Xcode and MacBook). Many people including programming instructors for the iPhone was said to be impossible to create applications in non-Mac environments. More impossible even with open source tools.

Although it is an Android developer, questioning arose because already installed the Android on the iPhone ... the iPad A4 processor is based on the Cortex-A8 which basically belongs to ARM architecture. On the site UBM TechInsights we can get the X-RAY in CPU processed A4 and realize "total similarity" to the core of Samsung S5PC110A01. So it's easy to conclude that the iPad A4 processor = ARM A8 Cortx (45 nm) = ARM.

So I started my journey to the cross-compiling applications written in C / C ++ and Obj-C for APPLE devices.

I take this article to release a Linux appliance based on openSUSE I created for those interested in developing software for the iPhone using open-source tools and has no time for solving compiling and dependence, as well as compatibility of the same with your current system. This project is called LiMobile , this initiative was born of my research, but also the need to carry a live CD or a USB stick with a system composed of all SDK open souce for APPLE portable devices.

Magic to reach the end result is the research and clusters of many open source tools, but especially worth mentioning the llvm-gcc and the iphonedevonlinux.

LLVM, Low Level Virtual Machine, is a compilation of infrastructure, following (Lattner, C, 2006), provides modular and reusable components for compiler construction, thus reducing the time and cost to build a particular compiler. The llvm-gcc. It is a version of gcc that compiles C / ObjC programs in native objects, LLVM bitcode (binary), or in assembly language LLVM (text) (LLVM TEAM, 2009).

The iphonedevonlinux package is just a script that downloads and processes all codes conceivable sources to compile the arm-darwin-gcc compiler. The main advantage of LiMobile and also has packages with release are accurate, download exemption hours at compile time, so it is done download only the packages owners not to violate the licensing of APPLE.