Dear Apple,
Fuck you.
Sincerely,
A bored developer forced to build and deploy with a virtualized OSX.

May we create some kind of petition to get XCode on Linux? Maybe it's even violation of antitrust law

That would be awesome, but I think we don't have much leverage, plus it only means $$$ loss for Apple

As someone who's into android development I've thought about learning to develop for iOS just in case I'll ever want/need to release an app for both platforms. Android Studio is available for Windows/Mac/Linux/Toaster/whatever, once I found out about the exclusivity of Xcode my thoughts were exactly like yours.

@dannydam from what I've read, JetBrains kotlin-native aims to generate native code using llvm. So in theory, you should be able to code for ios as well :)

Alternatively use react-native or xamarin or hell c/c++. You could even do it in assembly :/

@rusty-hacker Interesting. Has anyone tested this?

I'm using React Native, XCode is still required to publish the app'

Mmm... Why do you blame Apple for virtualized OSX?

@dannydam have not used it personally. But I would imagine it would be similar to a c library.

@lemonti420 yeah I know. You also need to get their dev license and use that stupid app loader thing. Though getting an os-x vm is also another option. The compilation stwp could be run remotely or on a vm ...

I blame them for the lack of alternative when it comes to iOS development, not the virtual machine itself

Whatever technology you use, you will still need an apple machine to build it, to run it, or to use the user interface designer ("Interface Builder"), depending on the technology. I tried Xcode, Xamarin and React Native.

I don't like react native because it reinvents the wheel and uses Javascript and a HTML-like language.

Xamarin is ok but you still need OS X to compile and to use the interface builder. Many things is still a PITA witch Xamarin.

So I prefer to use Xcode on OS X directly. It has its own issues but is by far the best way to make iOS Apps. Plus, you can use Swift Programming Language, which is awesome!