How to wrap existing iOS app to launch on MacOS

Question

s_petrovskiy2 OP

Created 2w

Replies 1

Boosts 0

Participants 2

Hi community!

It is known that application designed for iOS may be launched on MacOS with arm chip. With XCode this is simple, you just choose to launch on current machine (Designed for iPad). As I can see, some magic happens: some tool wraps myproj.app into another app, which contains WrappedBundle link and Wrapper subdirectory.

Does anybody know how to invoke this wrapping tool via command line? I am using CLion as IDE for my personal preferences, and I want to build app with CLion and wrap the result with external tool into a MacOS-compatible app to test if it works for MacOS as well.

In other words, having the myproj.app I want to run something like "magictool -wrap /path/to/myproj.app"

Best regards!

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Answer 1

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

2w

There is nothing different you should do to distribute an iOS app, and have it run on an Apple silicon Mac. The bundle structure you're asking about is an implementation detail created by macOS as part of installing an iOS app that you do not need to replicate yourself. If you're shipping from the App Store, all of this is taken care of automatically.

If you're shipping an enterprise, ad-hoc, or development signed .ipa, then you are still handling an .ipa file for distribution, with all of the same requirements for bundle structure and distribution signing implicit with shipping an iOS app. In this case, when you double-click on the .ipa file, macOS runs an installer process to install the app into the macOS Applications folder in a way that enables the iOS app to run on your Apple silicon Mac.

—Ed Ford,  DTS Engineer

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