Making an iPhone app with the minimum Apple resources

DaveTheCoder

My current goal is to develop Android (and possibly HTML5) games using a Linux platform.

I don't have a Mac, iPhone or Apple account. (I had one of the early 1980's-vintage Macs, but it's long gone, and probably wouldn't be useful anyway. I hated Apple's closed architecture and controlling attitude.)

If I wanted to port a Godot Android game to iPhone/iOS, what are the minimum resources that would be needed?

E.g., a cheap Mac and iPhone?

cybereality

Yeah, I believe you need a Mac and iPhone (or iPod Touch, those still exist). The iPod Touch is the same as the iPhone, just without the mobile connection, and they are new $199. In terms of the computer, look for used Macbooks on ebay, they are usually like $300 and up. Just make sure they can run the latest macOS so you have no problems with the tools.

TwistedTwigleg

I'm not sure how viable it would be, but in theory you could use an M1 Mac for both building iOS apps and Mac apps, as well as testing for both. The downside is that you wouldn't have a touch screen and would have to rely on the MacOS trackpad/mouse to touch interface for testing iOS apps.

The cheapest M1 Mac mini runs at $700 directly from Apple though, so it may not be any cheaper than getting an iOS device and Mac off ebay.

Calinou

There are macOS desktop VMs you can rent online such as Macincloud, but the hourly cost can make those expensive in the long run.

As far as I know, you do not need a physical iPhone, iPad or iPod touch – using the iOS simulator on a Mac is enough.

DaveTheCoder

I'm not surprised that you have to pay to use a Mac VM. That's typical of Appleland. And it looks like you'd still have to buy licenses for whatever Apple applications you need to use. But apparently XCode is free to registered iOS developers, so maybe there wouldn't be a need to buy any Mac apps.