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If its possible to compile & and sign iOS or MacOS apps that would be VERY useful in CI environments, but yeah hard to think of other killer command-line apps t

If its possible to compile & and sign iOS or MacOS apps that would be VERY useful in CI environments, but yeah hard to think of other killer command-line apps that only run on MacOS. If they had good GUI support then some more things open up but nothing really essential. Garage Band has no equal in terms of ease of use, if you are into that sort of thing.

MrAlex94 2mo ago
Just in case anyone is wondering - this is already possible with Clang/LLVM and the work from Gregory Szorc: https://github.com/indygreg/apple-platform-rs/tree/main https://github.com/indygreg/apple-platform-rs/tree/main The Firefox source tree has every tool available for cross-compilation from Linux → macOS, which is how Firefox is built for macOS.
- henearkr 2mo ago
  The real deal-breaker is supporting the iOS app development. Which right now is only possible using XCode.
mike_hearn 2mo ago
You can ship a fully signed and self-updating macOS app from Linux (or Windows) using my product Conveyor: https://hydraulic.dev/ https://hydraulic.dev/ It has built in support for Electron, JVM, Flutter and even native apps (although of course then you still have to compile the native binaries on macOS yourself). That also works the other way around. You can ship to Windows from Linux or macOS.
- henearkr 2mo ago
  No support for iOS though.
  - mike_hearn 2mo ago
    Right, it's meant for portable desktop apps. You have to compile iOS apps on a Mac anyway so I'm not sure there'd be any demand for Conveyor's cross-building support for iOS apps.
    - henearkr 2mo ago
      "You have to compile iOS apps on a Mac anyway" Well, not if somebody finds a way to run the compilation elsewhere! Hence my comment! Right now, iOS dev requires to own a recent Mac machine, which is hell of expensive, and moreover needs to be renewed every few years... Completely unjustifiable...
      - mike_hearn 2mo ago
        If you target cross-platform frameworks that don't require Apple's toolchain, it can be made to work. For instance if you write an Electron or JVM app for the desktop then Conveyor can ship it from anything, because all the native components come pre-compiled in that case. But I don't think many people are writing mobile apps in that way.

MrAlex94 2mo ago

Just in case anyone is wondering - this is already possible with Clang/LLVM and the work from Gregory Szorc: https://github.com/indygreg/apple-platform-rs/tree/main https://github.com/indygreg/apple-platform-rs/tree/main The Firefox source tree has every tool available for cross-compilation from Linux → macOS, which is how Firefox is built for macOS.

henearkr 2mo ago
The real deal-breaker is supporting the iOS app development. Which right now is only possible using XCode.

mike_hearn 2mo ago

You can ship a fully signed and self-updating macOS app from Linux (or Windows) using my product Conveyor: https://hydraulic.dev/ https://hydraulic.dev/ It has built in support for Electron, JVM, Flutter and even native apps (although of course then you still have to compile the native binaries on macOS yourself). That also works the other way around. You can ship to Windows from Linux or macOS.

henearkr 2mo ago
No support for iOS though.
- mike_hearn 2mo ago
  Right, it's meant for portable desktop apps. You have to compile iOS apps on a Mac anyway so I'm not sure there'd be any demand for Conveyor's cross-building support for iOS apps.
  - henearkr 2mo ago
    "You have to compile iOS apps on a Mac anyway" Well, not if somebody finds a way to run the compilation elsewhere! Hence my comment! Right now, iOS dev requires to own a recent Mac machine, which is hell of expensive, and moreover needs to be renewed every few years... Completely unjustifiable...
    - mike_hearn 2mo ago
      If you target cross-platform frameworks that don't require Apple's toolchain, it can be made to work. For instance if you write an Electron or JVM app for the desktop then Conveyor can ship it from anything, because all the native components come pre-compiled in that case. But I don't think many people are writing mobile apps in that way.