Native iOS Development support

[rplankenhorn]

What do you need?

I realize this is a very lofty goal given the closed iOS Development ecosystem but shouldn't we at least try? I am a mobile developer (iOS Native and React Native) and this would allow me to completely switch over to using Omarchy 100% if this was supported.

Most current options use a VM so if that has to be the approach, maybe there is a way to "hide" the VM?

[alexhraber]

The real blocker is Apple’s Xcode license. Apple legally restricts iOS builds, signing, and simulation to macOS hardware — so even though the underlying toolchain (Swift, LLVM, etc.) could technically run on Linux, you can’t build or test a true iOS binary without Xcode running on a Mac somewhere in the process.

That said, development can absolutely happen on Linux. You can write and test your code natively in Omarchy, then offload the final build, signing, and simulation to macOS CI/CD runners such as GitHub Actions, Bitrise, or Codemagic — or use remote simulators like BrowserStack for UI testing.

So the clean, compliant path forward is simple: develop on Linux, build and simulate on macOS.

[rplankenhorn]

Yep agreed. I think for an individual app developer, this workflow probably isn't feasible but at the enterprise level, this could be accomplished with CI help.

[alexhraber]

you could have your CI running on a local mac that you connect with via ssh and github-actions with local runners hosted on the mac. Definitely doable, and I've configured that before.

This article is probably correct but it might not be up to date:
https://medium.com/@shohruhs/setup-your-own-github-actions-self-hosted-macos-runner-on-apple-m1-mac-0ae367f57813