I am not sure about this - does install any software also mean system software or is it only meant to allow installation from sources other than their own app store? To allow system software installations, Apple (and other mobile device manufacturers) will have to allow unlocking the bootloader. (But that alone is limited as without the hardware information of the individual parts, developing an alternate OS for such devices is painful work as you have to essentially reverse engineer everything to create the device drivers - as evident with the snail's pace that Asahi Linux are progressing at to port Linux to Apple M1 and M2 ARM processors. Unless ofcourse, the DMA also forces them to publish the hardware literature so that other system developers can use it, which would be a real game changer ... ).

I think that's completely unrealistic. It's not going to happen even if they open the platform up.

If the platform becomes open enough so we can side-load applications, I bet you 100EUR we'll be able to develop iPhone applications from any operating system, but first Linux, within a year :)

The only thing you 100% need osx for is the signature / certificates crap.

You can build most of an iOS app today on Linux (eg. some game frameworks, qt)

Eg: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/development/compiling...

I googled. There do appear to be `codesign` implementations on other platforms now https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14321559/using-mac-os-co... as well . No clue if they work

That's really helpful, didn't know about this and my endless searching didn't reveal this either. Thanks!

Note that I'm side loading two applications I actually wrote myself on my iPhone already...

How? I've been looking for ages on how to develop iPhone applications on Linux and there is no way that doesn't involve installing Hackingtosh, either as a new OS on a partition or in a VM, or renting a Mac server somewhere, so it's not really "developing on Linux" at all.

Um, you just create a cert in XCode, pair your device to it, load the certs onto the device and run the app on it.

You're not going to do it on a Linux box for sure as the tools aren't there but you certainly can run your own stuff on iOS. You don't have to sign up for anything either - just install XCode from the app store and build stuff.

Ah, I see. You completely missed the point...

> I can start writing software on Linux for iPhone, without requiring me to have a Mac

> we'll be able to develop iPhone applications from any operating system, but first Linux

> how to develop iPhone applications on Linux

^ is what I wrote, and you suggest "just install XCode from the app store"? Not sure how that's compatible.

Regardless, I hope we end with a phone that people can actually install their own software on, regardless of what laptops/desktop computer they own.

That's never going to happen and I'd rather Apple spent money on something else other than make it happen.

The issue is you don't have a Mac and that's really your problem, not theirs.

Random anecdote: if you don't pay 99€ yearly for your developer subscription Apple revokes your certificates and disables your apps on the Apple app store. Your problem indeed.

You don't have to pay Apple to deploy to your own device. I don't have a developer subscription. You only have to pay the 99€ to access the store and provisioning.

Your certs only last 7 days and IIRC you can only deploy 3 apps if you don't pay the 99$/year though.

Installation from an app store has become a reasonable customer expectation for most kinds of smartphone/tablet software.