B4i (iOS) - Updates thread

[eps]

Well, hopefully a VM will be enough for compiling and tht it will work with b4i. For testing, I think that inevitably you need an iphone and/or an ipad device (but you can get good deals online for older devices).

I think the oldest you should aim for is a 4S - which is the oldest device that will accept iOS 8. Although I'm not sure how quickly 4S phones run iOS8... but it should allow testing at least.

 

[Mitchboo]

Make sure that it runs at least Mavericks 10.9.x to support compilation to iOS 8!


I'm not very happy with this solution, but I think that I will go this way until I get enough money to buy any Mac (probably the mini).
In Argentina the Mac Mini cost about $1500, the Macbook Air and pro are about $2500-3000 and the Mac Pro about $4000.

Hackintosh is extremely strange, and may hinder your capacity to use Windows after it had been installed.

Consider VirtualBox https://www.virtualbox.org/ from Oracle. It is a very nice VM that runs OS X on Intel PC with a high level of compatibility.
And it is free

I thought the general consensus of b4i was that a mac was not required??

I for one cannot afford one, so will not be purchasing one. My next machine purchase will be a cheap laptop to replace this 7 yr old one. This is the only system I have so would like to replace it before it dies and leaves me with nothing. Not going to happen probably for another year or so though.

If you can, make sure it is an Intel one, so you will be able to run a Mac VM. AMD does not work for that.

 

[Brian Robinson]

Hi All,
Something interesting I came across today. Was thinking that this is a way that existing libraries that people have already written could be cross compiled to Objective C. Or, you could even just write the complete app in B4A and then use xmlvm to output to an iPhone app?

Any thoughts?

http://xmlvm.org/android/

 

[quantum]

Hi All,
Something interesting I came across today. Was thinking that this is a way that existing libraries that people have already written could be cross compiled to Objective C. Or, you could even just write the complete app in B4A and then use xmlvm to output to an iPhone app?

Any thoughts?

http://xmlvm.org/android/

Interesting project, but there haven't been any updates since 2011.

Also they don't automatically cross compile the Android UI, so you would have to build the iOS version in Interface Builder and integrate it into the generated Objective-C.

 

[tuhatinhvn]

is there library media player stream to play audio online??? (with url not offline)??

 

[Erel]

MediaPlayer will allow you to stream online audio.

 

[jo1234]

Will barcode recognition be implemented?

 

[Erel]

Will barcode recognition be implemented?

The first version is just the first version. Many more libraries will be available afterwards, including barcode scanning.

 

[XverhelstX]

Hi Erel

Are the libraries written in Objective-C or Swift?
I have now started my 3th bach Computer Science and i'm learning native Android and iOS development.
So i might be interested in doing some testing and creating some b4i libraries.

Tomas

 

[Erel]

Objective C. Though it would probably be possible to use Swift as well as they are both interchangeable.

 

[abhishek007p]

i want to ask which is the lowest version of iPhone that will be supported/required for development. and if someone doesnt have a iPhone, can they go for iPad mini instead.

2nd questions, until i get a Apple Dev account, can i jailbreak and install B4i app on it?

 

[quantum]

i want to ask which is the lowest version of iPhone that will be supported/required for development. and if someone doesnt have a iPhone, can they go for iPad mini instead.

It should work with any iOS device that's supported by XCode 6. I think the oldest iPhone for that is the 4S.

2nd questions, until i get a Apple Dev account, can i jailbreak and install B4i app on it?

Good luck getting an answer to that! Either pay the $99 (to Apple) or use the iOS simulator in OSX.

 

[Mitchboo]

until i get a Apple Dev account, can i jailbreak and install B4i app on it?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/...s-on-device-without-developer-program-ios-5-1
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9898039/xcode-4-3-2-bypass-code-signing
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/...apps-without-apple-developer-program-on-ios-7

Does not seem very easy...

Besides, jailbreaking is usually not supported for the latest version of the system. I am not even sure it can be done for iOS7 yet. Not to mention the very real risk to brick your device...

 

[ilan]

i want to ask which is the lowest version of iPhone that will be supported/required for development. and if someone doesnt have a iPhone, can they go for iPad mini instead.

2nd questions, until i get a Apple Dev account, can i jailbreak and install B4i app on it?

b4i will support only ios7 and up so the minimum for that is iphone 4 !!
xcode6 can develope also for older ios but b4i will run only on devices with ios 7 and up (like erel allready mentioned)


i am searching for the web for long time and there is no easy way to install an app you developed in swift (xcode6) to your jailbroken phone

its very complicated ...

so better use simulator until you get a dev account. what i will do is make some apps see how they work on the simulator and when they are ready to publish open an account like this you dont lose time ..

 

[Mitchboo]

b4i will support only ios7 and up so the minimum for that is iphone 4 !!
xcode6 can develope also for older ios but b4i will run only on devices with ios 7 and up (like erel allready mentioned)

I would not worry much about versions older than 7.

iOS 7 had over 90% adoption rate back in 07/14/2014 http://9to5mac.com/2014/07/14/apple...statistics-claims-90-adoption-rate-for-ios-7/ .
iOS 8 had already 46% on September 24 http://www.benchmarkmonitor.com/ios...-all-apple-devices-within-just-5-days/182958/

Compared to Android, iOS has an incredibly fast update speed, which means it will not be necessary to have versions for older phones.

Jelly Beans was at 54.2%, by comparison, and KitKat was 21% on 08/13/2014 http://www.hngn.com/articles/38950/...android-kitkat-adoption-spikes-21-percent.htm

 

[socialnetis]

You can develop and test in a emulator without paying the dev account?
If this is true, so we can pay for B4i license, test for a while using the emulator (we compile in our mac machine as erel say, and test in the emulator) and after we feel we are ready to go and publish then we pay for the Apple dev account?

Do you think is possible to avoid having an iOS device at all? I mean, you test in the emulator, and just publish to the App Store when you are ready.

 

[ilan]

You can develop and test in a emulator without paying the dev account?
If this is true, so we can pay for B4i license, test for a while using the emulator (we compile in our mac machine as erel say, and test in the emulator) and after we feel we are ready to go and publish then we pay for the Apple dev account?

Do you think is possible to avoid having an iOS device at all? I mean, you test in the emulator, and just publish to the App Store when you are ready.

thats exactlly what i said, you can develop, test on emulator until you got some apps then open account and publish them, like this you dont lose time (1 year license)

its better to have a real device because not allways the simulator act like the real device, you can find a used iphone 4 for very low price, check in ebay

 

[Erel]

You can develop and test in a emulator without paying the dev account?

With Xcode yes. With B4i you need a real device with a developer account.

You may be able to also test your app on the emulator however it will require one or more additional steps and it will not work with the debugger.

B4i is a Windows tool. The iOS emulator doesn't work on Windows. It is likely that we will also provide a hosting service where we will host the Mac compiler for your (a bit similar to MacInCloud). This means that you will be able to develop without a local Mac.

 

[ilan]

With Xcode yes. With B4i you need a real device with a developer account.

You may be able to also test your app on the emulator however it will require one or more additional steps and it will not work with the debugger.

B4i is a Windows tool. The iOS emulator doesn't work on Windows. It is likely that we will also provide a hosting service where we will host the Mac compiler for your (a bit similar to MacInCloud). This means that you will be able to develop without a local Mac.

so what does it means? i bought a new mac for nothing? first you said we wont need a mac then we will need a mac now again we wont need ??

b4i will work only with a dev account? so that means we will first need to buy the 99$ license before we even started to make anything in b4i..
not so good news...

how will it work, we make an app in b4i then transfer the app to mac an compile there and then we will be able to publish it??

 

[Erel]

See the first sentence in the first post:
All the information posted in this thread is subject to changes.

B4i will require a Mac for the compilation step. A local Mac will always be better than any remote service. The remote service will not be free and it will have its limits. You will also need a Mac for the last step which is to upload the app to Apple (or use a service such as MacInCloud).

b4i will work only with a dev account? so that means we will first need to buy the 99$ license before we even started to make anything in b4i..
not so good news...

Yes. You need to have an Apple developer license to start developing with B4i. You also need such a license if you develop with Xcode assuming that you want to test your app on a real device and/or plan to upload it to the app store (it is true that you can "save" a month or two with Xcode however in the long term it is more or less meaningless).

how will it work, we make an app in b4i then transfer the app to mac an compile there and then we will be able to publish it??

The mac will run a small "compiler" server which will be used by the IDE to compile the app when needed. When the app is ready you will need to upload the ipa file to the Mac and upload it to the app store.