Claude Code · Claude · Apple · iOS · scottwillsey.com
Building and shipping Mac and iOS apps without ever opening Xcode
Compiled by KHAO Editorial — aggregated from 1 source + 1 reference discovered via search. See llms.txt for citation guidance.
◌ Single Source
Lately, the reporter has heard several Apple related podcasters talk about how bad Xcode is, and how Apple needs to make vibe-coding Mac and iOS apps better by making Xcode less inscrutable.
Key facts
- Cd "$(dirname "$0")/." means the script hops to the repo root regardless of where you invoked it from, so./scripts/release.sh works whether you’re in the repo root or three directories down
- Once that’s done, create a Developer ID Application certificate (Settings → Accounts → your Apple ID → Manage Certificates… → + → Developer ID Application ), which creates a cert for signing the shipped
- NOTE: You have to have a paid Apple Developer account to distribute and notarize your apps
- Please note that a Developer ID Application certificate and your Apple Development certificate are two separate things
Summary
And if you’re ever in doubt about how to make any of the following work, point Claude Code or your LLM coding tool of choice to this blog post, and let it figure it out. A few one-time steps do need the GUI (or an interactive terminal): sign into your Apple ID, create a Developer ID certificate, store a notarization password. The Mac app ships via one script, scripts/release.sh, which you write once. Signing is certificate-and-keychain based. The signing key lives in the login keychain; xcodebuild finds it automatically.