Building and Shipping Mac and iOS Apps Without Ever Opening Xcode

Re:Building and Shipping Mac and iOS Apps Without Ever Openi... by kxxx on Monday July 13, 2026 @04:24PM (#48898296)

I've been building and testing my iOS app just for fun via Linux only.

Surprisingly, it's very easy. This works like a charm: https://github.com/xtool-org/xtool

You do not need to upload to TestFlight or the App Store; you can just install the app locally to your iPhone via usb -- even from Linux!

When in doubt, just ask your coding agent of choice to help you create and upload a Hello World iOS app. It's really easy.

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Re:Building and Shipping Mac and iOS Apps Without Ever Openi... by sdicker on Monday July 13, 2026 @05:08PM (#48898912)

I’ve been doing the same except that my linux installation is via WSL on Windows. I’ve been using sideloadly to move my IPA over to my phone. Works great.

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Re:Building and Shipping Mac and iOS Apps Without Ever Openi... by timcobb on Monday July 13, 2026 @08:00PM (#48900599)

Woah thanks for sharing will have to check this out.

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Re:Building and Shipping Mac and iOS Apps Without Ever Openi... by amelius on Monday July 13, 2026 @06:53PM (#48900022)

Do the coding agents know about this tool?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Building and Shipping Mac and iOS Apps Without Ever Openi... by Yiin on Monday July 13, 2026 @07:28PM (#48900339)

just link it?

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Re:Building and Shipping Mac and iOS Apps Without Ever Openi... by thephyber on Monday July 13, 2026 @08:21PM (#48900757)

“Just link it” is like telling an intern to “use this program”. It will take a while (and each LLM user will burn tokens while learning).

This is the perfect use case for a skill: one person takes the hit to create the skill and then anyone else who wants the tool can use the skill.

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Re:Building and Shipping Mac and iOS Apps Without Ever Openi... by GaryBluto on Monday July 13, 2026 @05:10PM (#48898939)

Does the iPhone need to remain tethered if it is transferred via USB?

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Re:Building and Shipping Mac and iOS Apps Without Ever Openi... by drakythe on Monday July 13, 2026 @05:21PM (#48899065)

Dev apps need to be re-loaded every week (or two?) last time I did sideloading. The idea behind a dev app, in Apple's mind, is that it is for limited testing, so they have an expiration when not signed/installed through the App store.

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Re:Building and Shipping Mac and iOS Apps Without Ever Openi... by judge2020 on Monday July 13, 2026 @09:57PM (#48901365)

That is specifically for apps installed with a personal signing certificate, when you haven't paid for a developer account. If you pay the $99 program fee, you get 365 days of validity.

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Re:Building and Shipping Mac and iOS Apps Without Ever Openi... by mlrtime on Tuesday July 14, 2026 @06:43AM (#48904738)

I'm not an ios developer so forgive me...

So you can develop ios apps, run it on a real iphone that is activated without going through app store as a native app? But, you have to reinstall it every week?

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Re:Building and Shipping Mac and iOS Apps Without Ever Openi... by sdicker on Tuesday July 14, 2026 @07:20AM (#48905016)

Yes, but you have to reinstall every week unless you have a paid developer account.

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