How to install a Apple iOS VM?

[ITMan01]

Hi,

Is it possible to install Apple iOS as a Virtual Machine?

thanks!

[WoodyZ]

It is not supported by VMware, nor is it allowed by its SLA.

[ITMan01]

I know that it is not officially supported, but technically, is it possible to do that. Is there any non-official reference?

[dariusd]

VMware products will do virtualization of Intel Architecture (x86/x64) processors, not emulation of non-x86/x64 processors.  As far as I know, iOS is not available in any x86 or x64 build, so it would seem impossible to run it as a guest within any VMware products.

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Darius

[vmxmr · Accepted solution]

Silly Answer:

Apple's Xcode development tools include an iOS simulator (iPhone and iPad) which will run your iOS code. I suppose that you could call it a virtual machine, but it doesn't run native in VMware. Xcode is free to all Mac users.

You could install OS X in a VMware virtual machine, then install Xcode in it, and then run the iOS simulator there, but why not run it in the native Mac environment? It would run much better there.

Important Note: I ran a quick test, and the iOS simulator would not start up in a VMware guest OS X virtual machine. It was a beta of Xcode 6, so I don't know where the problem is, and I do not have time to figure it out. As I said, run Xcode and iOS Simulator native in your Mac, and it will run much better anyway.

[ColoradoMarmot]

XCode requires 3d acceleration last I looked, so it won't run in a VM.

[thorsfall]

We do all our OSX and iOS builds in VMs, so I don't think your comment about Xcode requiring 3D acceleration is correct (at least not real 3D acceleration).

Maybe someone from VMware would like to comment (darius?), but I believe they also build their official software releases on Mac Minis running VMware ESXi and OSX VMs (per http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/07/31/vmware_builds_product_executables_on_50_mac_minis/).

That said, the iOS simulator doesn't do a very good job of emulating the actual hardware running iOS.  Our developers find issues that occur only on real Apple hardware (iPhones/iPads) all the time, and they never show up in the simulator.

[dariusd]

AFAIK, our build machines use Xcode's command-line toolchain (clang, etc.) but do not run the Xcode graphical interface.  I doubt that provides a meaningful data point for either side of this debate. 

Cheers,

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Darius