A confession: I hate the IOS dev environment!

[karlth]

I've probably spent at least 20% of the development time fighting with Xcode(options/schemas/endless hidden settings/v3-v4 transition/bugs) and the never-ending pit of code signing/appids/adhoc distribution/keychains/etc.

God I hate the iOS development environment.

Love the devices though. It is just the development and publishing workflow that should be taken into an alley and shot.

Thanks. Just had to get that off my chest. :)

[kohjingyu]

It's really hard, and sometimes it's really frustrating too. (Provisioning profiles!)

But it's all good in the end, because I love iOS devices.

[karlth]

It's really hard, and sometimes it's really frustrating too. (Provisioning profiles!)

But it's all good in the end, because I love iOS devices.

It is a love hate thing. When it is frustrating you hate it and then when you find the solution you forget about it almost immediately.

Most of the deployment/keychain/profiles really should be handled automatically.

[schplurg]

I've probably spent at least 20% of the development time fighting with Xcode(options/schemas/endless hidden settings/v3-v4 transition/bugs) and the never-ending pit of code signing/appids/adhoc distribution/keychains/etc.

God I hate the iOS development environment.

Love the devices though. It is just the development and publishing workflow that should be taken into an alley and shot.

Thanks. Just had to get that off my chest. :)

Heck, I don't even like the devices, at least the phones. My phone (and or at&t) is crap. My crappy Audiovox MetroPCS flip phone had voice dialing years before the iPhone. WTH?

As a dev, I hate many of Apple's policies. I don't like their computers, I'm a Windows man. I hate the stranglehold Apple insists on having over everything.

The only thing I like about Apple is that they pay me every month, and they pay fair. I LOVE making games and have done it for free for years and years, but Apple? Pain in the ASS to work with. I do appreciate the availability of the app store to small budget devs though.

[Rocotilos]

I've probably spent at least 20% of the development time fighting with Xcode(options/schemas/endless hidden settings/v3-v4 transition/bugs) and the never-ending pit of code signing/appids/adhoc distribution/keychains/etc.

God I hate the iOS development environment.

Love the devices though. It is just the development and publishing workflow that should be taken into an alley and shot.

Thanks. Just had to get that off my chest. :)

Hehe. If you hate iOS SDK, I think you should try developing for Android. Here's my thoughts about it: http://emir-bytes.blogspot.com/2011/06/spreading-my-wings-android.html

:D

[Barcâ]

Xcode is a perpetual cluster f*** sometimes.

The V3-V4 conversion really messed with a lot of people. I started developing on V4 so I was lucky enough to skip the upgrade issues.

The app signing process coupled with the provisioning file baloney has really deterred me from using the SDK.

I just hope in the next iteration of the SDK that Apple, simplifies things to a degree. At least the app signing, provisioning, and app submission processes.

[NinthNinja]

Compared to the Android SDK and dev tools Xcode is leagues ahead... Once you get used to Xcode then everything is great but developing on Android is a pile of crap.

[Moonjump]

I just hope in the next iteration of the SDK that Apple, simplifies things to a degree. At least the app signing, provisioning, and app submission processes.

It is already a lot simpler than it was, but I also hope it gets even more straightforward and automated.

[smashdev2011]

I think it's funny that Apple devices are so simple and user-friendly, but the dev environment for them is so... Not simple.

[AmazingRuss]

I think it's funny that Apple devices are so simple and user-friendly, but the dev environment for them is so... Not simple.

I've heard it theorized that they do this to keep the feeble minded away.

If that's the case, I'm borderline feeble minded.

[MikeSz_spokko]

Haha, funny - I was thinking about starting a thread like that yesterday ;)

We've been making iOS games for over 3 years now - and I still hate tons of things about Apple. Where do I start...

Oh well, let's start with what Apple says about themselves ;)

1) "It just works". Must be a reason why we just had to reinstall 2 systems over the weekend because XCode simply started crashing every 5 minutes. For no reason. On 2 macs at the same time. How is that even possible is beyond me

2) "Works out of the box". Well, maybe works but doesn't cooperate. I switched to Lion and was greeted with the "natural scrolling motion" shit. How in the name of all that is idiotic they came up with that crap is beyond me. And since I have non-pro Macbook I couldn't change the scrolling from the touchpad settings panel. Instead... I had to plug mouse and change scrolling on it. Intuitive as ��������

3) "For professionals". I guess XCode 4 is the one and ONLY developer tool in the world that will not allow you to customize the stupid toolbar. It will also remove functionalities from Xcode 3 (like header / class toggle button) for no reason, and change shortcut for the same functionality. That's very Apple'ish - it doesn't make software for people. It makes people for their software

Ah, I could go on and on, but there's really no point. I really see no alternative to it ;) There's Android market but let's be honest about it - I'd rather struggle with the development than struggle with the market. iOS is fantastic for the developer - the devices are pretty much always the same, the users are conditioned, there's just one marketplace and so on

So I'd suggest you - grind your teeth but keep on working. Think whatever you think about Apple - and trust me I don't think kindly at all - but use the opportunity that they provided

[schplurg]

I've heard it theorized that they do this to keep the feeble minded away.

If that's the case, I'm borderline feeble minded.

Well there sure are a lot of feeble games out there! It isn't working! :)

[willzeng]

Code signings are OK for me. My nightmares are:

1) Fighting against retina/non-retina/iPad-res issues, especially you are also using some 3rd party tools like cocos2d

2) Once Xcode3, then Xcode4 and again Xcode3... Many things became a chaos. (Still has after effects by now. Crashes in simulator before iOS 4.0 version. Don't know if the same for the real devices.)

[GlennX]

XCode has actually improved a hell of a lot over the last three years, it took a while but I now actually prefer it to MS Visual Studio which I've used for many years. Even provisioning has improved a little, still a huge pain though, just a few days ago I had to get an urgent adhoc build to someone only to find my distribution certificate had expired. That was a fun half hour...

There is a flip side to provisioning hell though. Arguably it's the reason that iOS devices are relatively hard to jailbreak and sales are relatively unaffected by piracy. The evidence being that Android sales have overtaken iOS while Android app sales are still lagging way behind.

[pinkandpurple]

Hehe. If you hate iOS SDK, I think you should try developing for Android. Here's my thoughts about it: http://emir-bytes.blogspot.com/2011/06/spreading-my-wings-android.html

:D

So her eis my thought for six months
Will I sell much miuch more doing a direct app or selling my ebooks through the Kindle app?

[EfratBarTal]

this IDE should be scrapped ASAP, along with iTunes.

[jclardy]

Back during Xcode 3 days and when Xcode didn't do automatic provisioning I didn't like it. So many hours spent searching the filesystem for an expired provisioning profile because Xcode decided it didn't want to actually delete it.

But now I don't mind, maybe I have just gotten used to it.

Though I would say I have tried development for the Blackberry playbook, and that was a nightmare in comparison. I built a simple app (which was also a pain, because their system API's were terrible and incomplete) in a day or two, and spent the next 3 or so days trying to actually submit it.

Also have tried Android dev which doesn't seem bad in terms of building/submitting. But of course their API's also suck in comparison to Apple's. I don't mind using Eclipse, but on a mac it just feels bad and sluggish in comparison to Xcode, even on an i7. On Windows it doesn't feel as bad, maybe the Java UI is implemented better on it.

[Hercule]

Me too I've struggled with provisionning profile. Back in the days with java game, it was a lot more simple. Just sign your jar (and compatible with 600 different phone..)

But what bother me more, is the lack of good tool for dev on MacOS.
There is no good SVN client or good filemanager.

[mr.Ugly]

Me too I've struggled with provisionning profile. Back in the days with java game, it was a lot more simple. Just sign your jar (and compatible with 600 different phone..)

But what bother me more, is the lack of good tool for dev on MacOS.
There is no good SVN client or good filemanager.


for svn take a look at versions http://versionsapp.com/

[pkMinhas]

I wish there was something similar to javadocs in XCode!

[Jon914]

I wish there was something similar to javadocs in XCode!

You mean doxygen?

http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/

And with this tool, you can make the output resemble the Apple docs.

https://github.com/mattball/doxyclean

[iancahill]

Not to sound like a sales pitch, but I work for a company called RareWire and we have been working on a programming language to let you build iOS and Android apps outside of X-code. It is XML based and super easy to learn.

You do still have to submit your app through Apple of course and deal with all the provisioning profiles, but we are trying to simplify the development part. check out our site and sign up for our beta of our App Creation Studio, it might be the reason to keep going! www.rarewire.com

Also, I know this is my first post, but honestly I am not a bot pitching my brand. I am real (@iancahill on twitter) I just want to relieve xcode headaches!

[Ovogame]

I don't mind too much about XCODE because I am only spending like 1% of my time with it :)

99% of my time is spent on my PC with MSDEV. I made my own cross platform c++ 2D engine and it means that I can create my game on the PC, then simply move the code and the data on my mac when I want to test on the actual device. And it works like a charm... I'm so glad that I am only using XCODE to actually test on the real device, my dev time is almost 100% spent on the PC. It is so much faster to develop. Press F5 and I am immediately in the game, I can create my own tools & editor to create my levels on the PC. And what I see on the PC editor will be exactly what I'll see on the device. The best part is that I get 3 versions (PC/MAC/iOS) for the price of 1. I am really thinking about releasing this ... but I am wondering if there are an audience for this stuff.

JC

[FunInfusedGames]

Coming from a Microsoft environment, Xcode is a clunky, unfriendly, generally awful IDE. I wish Apple would take a look at what Microsoft has done with Visual Studio and just do that too. Probably the most frustrating aspect of iOS development so far has been using Xcode (and missing how nice Visual Studio is).

[eJayStudios]

Coming from a Microsoft environment, Xcode is a clunky, unfriendly, generally awful IDE. I wish Apple would take a look at what Microsoft has done with Visual Studio and just do that too. Probably the most frustrating aspect of iOS development so far has been using Xcode (and missing how nice Visual Studio is).

Same here.. After many years in Windows using Delphi, then VS, XCode looked like 20 years back in time. I don't even like Mac OS that much, somehow I find Windows much easier to navigate (probably because I used it for long time).

[FunInfusedGames]

I still have trouble w/ Macs different keyboard shortcuts. Ctrl+V to paste seems to scroll me near the bottom of a page... WTF was that!!!

Considering the majority of my game is C++, I should really look into how to develop it on PC instead and do minimal work on the Mac.

[LiamAtDevour]

It took me several hours to work out how to put an already existing project onto my iPhone for the first time. All of the provisioning profiles and app ID's and everything seemed so illogical and unnecessary. Once you've done it a couple of times though it's super quick.

Also, this was just after I'd bought my Macbook Air and hadn't used a mac in ~6 years, so that didn't help me make my way around.