Installation

What You Need Before You Can Begin

Before you can begin creating iOS applications with the ArcGIS API for iOS, you will need a few things.

Machine Requirements

Development using the ArcGIS API for iOS requires an Intel-based Macintosh running Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6.2 or higher) Or Lion (OS X 10.7 or higher).

Apple's iOS SDK

If you are not one already, you will need to become a registered Apple developer. Apple requires this step before you're allowed to download the iOS SDK. To sign up, navigate to the registration page and enroll.

Once registered, you can then go to the iOS Dev Center, log in and download the iOS SDK onto your machine. The SDK contains documentation, frameworks, tools, and a simulator to help develop iOS applications. XCode (the developer toolset for iOS application development) is included in the download as well so you do not need to purchase any developer tools to build iOS applications - that is included in the enrollment fee.

You will need to use a minimum of iOS SDK 4 for developing iPhone and iPod Touch applications or a minimum of iOS SDK 3.2 for developing iPad applications. At the time of writing this document, iOS SDK 4.3 was the most recent version available and supported.

Note:

Beta and GM seed versions of the iOS SDK are not generally not supported unless noted otherwise.

Regardless of the iOS SDK you use for development, you can still target your application for devices running an older iOS version by configuring your Xcode project's iOS Deployment Target build setting. Be sure to add runtime checks where appropriate to ensure that you use only those iOS features available on the target platform/device. If your application attempts to use iOS features not available on the device, your application may crash.

Device Requirements

Applications built with ArcGIS API for iOS can be run on iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch, and iPad devices. These devices must be running iOS version 3.1.2 or higher. We strongly recommend that you test your applications on actual devices to ensure that they work as expected and perform well. Testing on the simulator alone does not provide a good measure of how the application will perform on the physical device.

Installing the ArcGIS API for iOS

Once you have installed Apple's iOS SDK, you will need to download and install the ArcGIS API for iOS. This can be found at the ArcGIS API for iOS Resource Center.

Stepping through the install wizard installs the API under ${HOME}/Library/SDKs/ArcGIS.

The header files are installed under ${HOME}/Library/SDKs/ArcGIS/iOS.sdk/usr/local/include

The static library is installed under ${HOME}/Library/SDKs/ArcGIS/iOS.sdk/usr/local/lib

And finally, the API resources (images, etc) are installed as a bundle under ${HOME}/Library/SDKs/ArcGIS/iOS.sdk/usr/local/resources

Note:

The ${HOME}/Library folder is hidden by default in Mac OS X Lion. You can issue the command chflags nohidden ~/Library/ in the terminal to unhide it.