2014-10-20 22:50:12

Hi Guys.
Well I've been considering developing for android for a while but since I hate java with a passion I want to focus on developing for iPhone. I can't get to my mac right now but I was wondering how easy is it to develop on my iPod touch? What sort of tools do I need? I know to use x-code on mac but I haven't seen a version for iOs. I've seen different apps for different programming languages on the appstohe I was thinking of using python but when I search it on the store I come up with so many different python apps some are free and some are not. Does anybody know which ones are accessible?
Thanks for the help.

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2014-10-21 02:50:59 (edited by camlorn 2014-10-21 02:51:41)

You can't. At all. Ever.  This is by design.
The sad truth is that you need a Mac, and god help you if you go down this road.  I'd choose Java over iOS, at least if we're talking about free options; I've heard that Ruby Motion works around most of the accessibility problems, but it's decidedly not free.  The device itself will let you get apps that let you program, but you can't make iPhone apps in them.  In order to submit to the app store, you need Xcode or at least a Mac; and, due to Apple's licensing, you can't make an alternate app store that allows on-device development.
As for Python, I'm hearing that voiceover does not have an indentation indication feature.  This may or may not be true, but probably is; I'm hearing this directly from someone who uses a Mac as a primary platform with a Windows VM.  Indentation indication is essential and, if missing, means you're not going to be able to without some editor fiddling in a Windows VM.  If someone actually has a way to enable this, I'm interested.
So basically-if you're blind, iOS development sucks all round.  I suspect that if you developed a workflow you could do it, but figuring out what that workflow is will take some doing.

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Twitter: @ajhicks1992

2014-10-21 21:01:13

Hello,
On the developer's mailing list at USAGames, there is an IOS developer. She has created all kinds of IOS apps and that is her specialty.
But you need to learn objective C to really do anything with IOS apps.
python will run on your computer, but not on the phone without some major hacks.

2014-10-22 14:51:25

This is one area where Apple is quite stupid. You "have" to have XCode, you "Have" to have a developer license. If they want more apps, they need to 1) get rid of the "ave to have XCode" bit; and 2) make XCode for iOS

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2014-10-22 15:53:55

XCode on iOS would suck.  A lot.  Forgetting the fact that it's a tiny screen, compilation times would both be insanely long and kill the battery.  It would suck slightly less for us, but most sighted people and probably all of the serious devs would still fall back to a computer.  In all honesty, iOS probably doesn't even have the ram for compiling large programs anyway.
As for XCode-it's not required, just none of the other options are free.  Ruby motion comes to mind; it creates the project for you via command line tools, launches the project for you via command line tools, and generally does everything with command line tools.  Those of us in this community are in a demographic with less money, so the up-front cost of getting a Mac (100% required, not optional) is high.
But think about it.  iOS is not aimed at new programmers, iOS is aimed at serious programmers.  If you're sighted and willing to pay the costs, then you can learn on it.  If you're blind, you need to come to it later anyway.  You have no command prompt and have to jump straight into the GUI and callback-based programming from day one.  Apple deciding that you can use Windows would not lead to significantly more apps in any case, and all of the phones will be hard to impossible for new blind programmers to develop on.  I'd say that by the time you're not asking your programming questions on these forums because no one can answer them here, you're going to google first and be successful with finding what you want in 90% of cases, and you especially don't need to ask this question, you'll be ready to try.

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Twitter: @ajhicks1992

2014-10-22 20:16:11

Hi Guys.
Thanks for the help I was afraid this would be the case. It's sad they sure don't make programming on touch screen devices easy. I guess for now I'll just stick to the awfullness that is windows. Thanks again.

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2014-10-23 00:46:15

Well, it's only extra hard for us.  A sighted person can just drag and drop and be on their way.  And windows isn't that bad, anyway.  There isn't anything easier to program for; there also isn't anything harder to program for.  By the time you'd actually be ready to make an app that's worth the cost, you'll find you're writing about the same amount of code.  In this case, it's simply that OS X accessibility for programmers is lame and that you have to write UI by hand instead of via the "blessed" methods.

My Blog
Twitter: @ajhicks1992

2015-05-05 23:55:47

I know its been a while since anyone has posted here, but, you may be interested in dapp.