Sideloading on iOS now Possible

[adams161]

A common complaint i heard is on iOS people cant side load. They need to get apps only from app store and cant install apps from their computer it is said. This used to be true.

As of Xcode 9 from around 2016 if the user has the project of the app, say it's open source or they made the code, anyone with a Mac, a copy of Xcode(free download from Mac App Store from Apple), and an iTunes ID(also free), can compile the code and side load onto their device via the standard cable used to normally synch with the computer(synching not required to do this).

https://blog.ionicframework.com/deployi ... r-account/

I'm not sure if it's considered a test build, in which case it would be good for 90 days, but after 90 days they could load it again after incrementing the build number.

[mar]

I have a few complaints:

iOS:
- you can't spawn processes on iOS => loading external engines is a no-go (this is not about safety because the app already runs sandboxed)
- you can't allocate executable pages so no JITting for you (again this is not about safety because the app already runs sandboxed)

iOS + OSX:
- Apple deprecated OpenGL ES and OpenGL on desktop (goodbye portable rendering backends - what a shame!)

so this is what the devs get for their $99 - a very restricted environment where Apple forces the devs into their own tech in favor of portability

this reminds me of the arrogance of Microsoft in the 90ies, but hey Apple it's 2019 now

[adams161]

so this is what the devs get for their $99 - a very restricted environment where Apple forces the devs into their own tech in favor of portability

I'm not sure if you're trying to be on topic or not and if you're not and just want to vent on Apple that is fine. But related to the topic of this post, no 99 dollar memberships are needed. One can use the same iTunes ID they use in the app store on the device they want to side load on. These ID's are free.

Mike Adams

[purechess]

But thanks for sharing!

I totally misunderstood the post at first. The term "sideloading" is misleading !

I though you talk about running an UCI engine binary like on Android thru loading this binary. But that's not the case.

Of course you can do your own iOS app and run any GPL software. Not necessary to go thru the Appstore. That a free Apple Developer license exists is common sense.

[adams161]

I totally misunderstood the post at first. The term "sideloading" is misleading !

From wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideloading

Sideloading is a term used mostly on the Internet, similar to "upload" and "download", but in reference to the process of transferring files between two local devices, in particular between a computer and a mobile device such as a mobile phone, smartphone, PDA, tablet, portable media player or e-reader.

It has not been thought to side load apps as you can in Android.

I though you talk about running an UCI engine binary like on Android thru loading this binary. But that's not the case.

This has important implications for using GPL engines like Stockfish in iOS apps. It is another way they can comply with GPL.

Of course you can do your own iOS app and run any GPL software. Not necessary to go thru the Appstore. That a free Apple Developer license exists is common sense.

It was not possible on iOS for nearly a decade to do this without paying 99 bucks.

[mar]

Simply sharing some frustrations I had when developing for iOS.
I also forgot the pain to generate zillions of icon sizes for various devices, I guess automatic image resampling would be too much to ask.
(my points are perfectly valid though - even if you bury your fanboy head deep in the sand

[adams161]

I also forgot the pain to generate zillions of icon sizes for various devices, I guess automatic image resampling would be too much to ask.

You can find web sites that can take one 1024 - 1024 icon image and give you all the icon sizes you need for both iOS and Android.

Mike Adams

[adams161]

Simply sharing some frustrations I had when developing for iOS.

I dont know if you're a millennial or gen-z but i feel i get static with the younger generation on talkchess.

Yea it's possible to develop for ios without great difficulty beyond 99 a year. Though you can side load on your own device for free.

Android is no walk in the park. Any development is a sort of commitment.

Mike Adams

[mar]

I dont know if you're a millennial or gen-z but i feel i get static with the younger generation on talkchess.

Yea it's possible to develop for ios without great difficulty beyond 99 a year. Though you can side load on your own device for free.

Android is no walk in the park. Any development is a sort of commitment.

Mike Adams

I'm certainly not a millennial. Would be nice to shave off 10-20 years though.

Ok, so you can test iOS apps now on your device without dev account. That's certainly nice. But if you want to go to AppStore/do AdHoc distribution, you'll still need the dev account if I'm not mistaken.
I personally don't care much about the price itself ($99), I simply feel that I don't get much in return.
Well - except the deprecation of OpenGL, which is a big problem for me because all my apps were portable, OpenGL-based.

I don't know which language you use for development, but I use C++, so the idea is to have portable C++ backend with Objective-C <=> C++ glue.

I never finished anything serious for Android except for compiling my engine to work with Chess for Android so I can't really compare.

May I ask how you deal with the portability of your applications and which language(s) you use?
Do you use Swift/ObjC for iOS and Java for Android, perhaps interfacing with C/C++ code to do common tasks?
I can imagine that maintaining multiple independent applications for each platform would be difficult.

[adams161]

I'm certainly not a millennial. Would be nice to shave off 10-20 years though.

Ok, so you can test iOS apps now on your device without dev account. That's certainly nice. But if you want to go to AppStore/do AdHoc distribution, you'll still need the dev account if I'm not mistaken.

The point of this post is you can side load on iOS. this is important for such things as if iOS can comply with GPL.

May I ask how you deal with the portability of your applications and which language(s) you use?

I"m not sure how this post is related to the topic. People do portability for example by using C++ libraries which i've used on both Android and iOS.

Mike Adams