Hello,
Is it possible to create iOS apps with OCaml? I know it might take some extra work to use a foreign-function interface to call Objective-C functions to create the UI objects. But I’m wondering if I can cross compile for ARM and send a binary to my iPhone, and eventually the App Store. I’ll be working from macOS (x86).
I’m also interested in macOS apps for the App Store, which probably require cross-compiling to make an ARM+x86 binary of some kind.
Rob
Can confirm: I knew a guy who built a UI-intensive iOS app for iPhone and iPad, sold it on the store, for a good number of years. Don’t know if he does anymore, b/c lost touch with him after Nov 9 2016 (for obvious (political) reasons).
There’s always the path of hybrid apps.
You can compile to JavaScript and use a framework like CapacitorJS (or even the older Cordova).
This way you can also target android using the same codebase.
I’ve already seen people trying to do that. Here is an example.
It’s not from me but it’s an example I got shown when I built my OCaml editor for iOS/iPadOS/macOS.
Couple more options …
Option 1: I mentioned last week in an unrelated thread that there is an opam package dkml-base-compiler that does cross-compilation. It supports most of the Android cross-compile matrix (ex. x86 → arm32), and the macOS (ex. x86_64 → arm64). I haven’t updated the official opam package to do iOS cross-compiles b/c most of my open-source time commitment has been for Windows. If you know how to compile the OCaml compiler, please extend that package! The bits will be very similar to the macOS cross-compiler, and I can guide you. See: https://discuss.ocaml.org/t/how-to-compile-ocaml-program-on-linux-for-running-on-freebsd/12110/4?u=jbeckford
Option 2: If you want a more out-of-the-box solution, you can use my commercial DkSDK native development kit. From an OCaml perspective, it is a OCaml-beginner friendly kit that embeds OCaml into other languages and frameworks. Two short-term things are relevant. 1) The docs mentions C a lot, but only because I haven’t finished writing its FFI. It will support OCaml objects ↔ Objective-C/Swift objects using Apple’s Foundation library. 2) I inadvertently broke support for Xcode builds, but that will get fixed sooner or later (depending on the interest).
Anyway, ping me privately if Objective-C/Swift dev in Xcode with the Run button automatically building FFI-supported OCaml code sounds like a fit.
The Be Sport app is written in OCaml (iOS, Android, Web client and server) with Ocsigen (Eliom, Js_of_ocaml, Ocsigen Start…) as an HTML5 app (with Cordova)
I also use Eliom for our internal mobile application and we are delighted. Very low maintenance, and only one application to write for all platforms. Very easy to use.
Thanks everyone. This gives me a lot of stuff to research. I’m not sure what I’m doing yet.