xcode XCode Apple product requirement sucks

[Mitch_]

So...

After watching the latest video from LTT about the iPhone "rant," I noticed that many of the issues they discussed seemed to stem from app developers (to some extent) rather than Apple itself. It made me reflect on the difficulties I faced with Xcode.

 

It reminded me of the horrible experience I had when trying to create a "simple" app for both Android and iOS using Flutter.

 

I’m a Windows user (and an Android user), so having to buy a complete iMac just to compile the app and push it to the App Store was already a significant downside. Still, I researched the minimum requirements to run Xcode (after consulting some experienced developers and checking documentation), and it turned out I needed a somewhat “newer” iMac just to run Xcode. 

 

So fine, I bit the bullet and bought a second-hand iMac that met the requirements (a few hundred euros down the drain). Add to that the $100(!) annual developer subscription (as a hobbyist), and I was finally able to compile the app—or so I thought. 

 

Setting it up and reopening the project after a few days would just break the entire code (it was fixable by doing a flutter clean etc, but not always.). It was far worse than I can now describe. So here’s my question:

 

Am I the only one who thinks this is ridiculous? Why does it have to be so difficult to compile an app that works perfectly on an Android system? Of course, I expected some troubleshooting because of permissions and platform-specific stuff, but this was on another level.  

 

As a Windows user, how did you manage to handle this? Did you end up going the same route as I did? Or is there a simpler trick I missed? Or am I just wining too much. 

 

Thanks for reading.  

PS: I hope this is allowed around here.

 

Kind regards,  

Mitch  

[Mortenrb]

Yeah, developing for iOS/mac OS can be a pain in the butt. I did it a couple of years ago, but I ended up ditching it, as I was only doing it as a hobby anyway, so why bother with mac OS, developer subscription (for publishing), testing on multiple devices and/or emulators etc. I was doing it for fun and this wasn't.

And no, you're not the only one who thinks this is ridiculous, but this is how Apple rolls, I guess

 

Anyway, to answer some of the complaints:

On 12/5/2024 at 11:55 PM, Mitch_ said:

buy a complete iMac

That's more of a "yesn't" than a requirement. While I somewhat agree with the sentiment, there are "cloud" alternatives to this, you can rent a mac or use something like Codemagic (which do have a free tier btw). I still would rather want to be able to do it straight from my Linux (I use Arch btw)/Windows-box rather than search externally or purchase an expensive Mac.

Virtualization of mac OS could also be used, but then it comes back to what you value the most, your time or your cash. And it could be difficult to virtualize it on certain hardware... and in a couple of years, X86 probably won't be supported neither, so it might not be worth the long term investment to do this?

On 12/5/2024 at 11:55 PM, Mitch_ said:

Add to that the $100(!) annual developer subscription (as a hobbyist)

This can go both ways, as it could result in more "serious" apps rather than just another fart-app, but it still does sting a bit, as a hobbyist. This is only required to publish the app thought, not to develop and test the app.

 

On 12/5/2024 at 11:55 PM, Mitch_ said:

Setting it up and reopening the project after a few days would just break the entire code

I believe this is a flutter issue, not an Apple-issue. I've at least had a similar issue when working with flutter and Android (I also believe I had similar issues with Xamarin on VS Studio when I used that, many moons ago)