Developing for just myself

I know there is a quite a few costs and licenses required for post apps to the App Store. I am interested in only developing apps for my own phone to see if this is something I want to venture into.

Is there a way (or online resources) that allow me to develop just for myself and install on my phone to experiment with? It does not make much sense if I have to purchase a developer license and all the other requirements if I am just experimenting, and being limited solely to the Xcode simulator is only half the experience.

Thoughts? and any help would be appreciated.

Accepted Reply

Welcome to the forum.

You can use full fledged Xcode for free and load the app you develop on your devices and of course test on simulators.

That's the free account. Really great to get started.

Limits:

  • no publishing on AppStore (I understand you don't care)
  • you will have to rebuild and reload the app on devices frequently (I think once a week). But's that not a big issue.

Good start and enjoy.

Replies

Welcome to the forum.

You can use full fledged Xcode for free and load the app you develop on your devices and of course test on simulators.

That's the free account. Really great to get started.

Limits:

  • no publishing on AppStore (I understand you don't care)
  • you will have to rebuild and reload the app on devices frequently (I think once a week). But's that not a big issue.

Good start and enjoy.

Claude31 wrote:

you will have to rebuild and reload the app on devices frequently

We finally got around to documenting those limits. For the details, see Developer > Support > Choosing a Membership.

Share and Enjoy

Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
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