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# iOS Xcode project

Host Platform Support (Platform support)
macOS | Windows | Linux
--- | --- | ---
x86‑64 | arm64 | x86 | x86‑64 | arm64 | x86 | x86‑64 | arm | arm64
● | ● |  |  |  |  |  |  |

When generating an iOS project, Briefcase produces an Xcode project.

## Icon format

iOS projects use `.png` format icons. An application must provide icons of the following sizes:

- 20px

- 29px

- 40px

- 58px

- 60px

- 76px

- 80px

- 87px

- 120px

- 152px

- 167px

- 180px

- 640px

- 1024px

- 1280px

- 1920px

The icon will also be used to populate the splash screen. You can specify a background color for the splash screen using the `splash_background_color` configuration setting.

iOS projects do not support installer images.

## Colors

iOS allows for some customization of the colors used by your app:

- `splash_background_color` is the color of the splash background that displays while an app is loading.

## Additional options

The following options can be provided at the command line when producing iOS projects:

### run

#### `-d <device>` / `--device <device>`

The device simulator to target. Can be either a UDID, a device name (e.g., `"iPhone 11"`), or a device name and OS version (`"iPhone 11::iOS 13.3"`).

## Application configuration

The following options can be added to the `tool.briefcase.app.<appname>.iOS.app` section of your `pyproject.toml` file.

### `info`

A property whose sub-attributes define keys that will be added to the app’s `Info.plist` file. Each entry will be converted into a key in the entitlements file. For example, specifying:

    info."UIFileSharingEnabled" = true

will result in an `Info.plist` declaration of:

    <key>UIFileSharingEnabled</key><true/>

Any Boolean or string value can be used for an `Info.plist` value.

## Permissions

Briefcase cross platform permissions map to the following `info` keys:

- `camera`: `NSCameraUsageDescription`

- `microphone`: `NSMicrophoneUsageDescription`

- `coarse_location` - `NSLocationDefaultAccuracyReduced=True` - `NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription` if `fine_location` is not defined

- `fine_location` - `NSLocationDefaultAccuracyReduced=False` - `NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription`

- `background_location`: - `NSLocationAlwaysAndWhenInUseUsageDescription` - `NSLocationWhenInUseUsageDescription` if neither `fine_location` or `coarse_location` is set - `UIBackgroundModes` will include `location` and `processing`

- `photo_library`: `NSPhotoLibraryAddUsageDescription`

## Platform quirks

### Availability of third-party packages

Briefcase is able to use third-party packages in iOS apps. As long as the package is available on PyPI, or you can provide a wheel file for the package, it can be added to the `requires` declaration in your `pyproject.toml` file and used by your app at runtime.

If the package is pure Python (i.e., it does not contain a binary library), that’s all you need to do. To check whether a package is pure Python, look at the PyPI downloads page for the project; if the wheels provided are have a `-py3-none-any.whl` suffix, then they are pure Python wheels. If the wheels have version and platform-specific extensions (e.g., `-cp311-cp311-macosx_11_0_universal2.whl`), then the wheel contains a binary component.

If the package contains a binary component, that wheel needs to be compiled for iOS. PyPI does not currently support uploading iOS-compatible wheels, so you can’t rely on PyPI to provide those wheels. Briefcase uses a secondary repository to store pre-compiled iOS wheels.

This repository is maintained by the BeeWare project, and as a result, it does not have binary wheels for every package that is available on PyPI, or even every version of every package that is on PyPI. If you see the message:

    ERROR: Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement <package name> (from versions: none)
    ERROR: No matching distribution found for <package name>

then the package (or the version that you’ve specified) probably isn’t supported yet.

It is usually possible to compile any binary package wheels for iOS, depending on the requirements of the package itself. If the package has a dependency on other binary libraries (e.g., something like `libjpeg` that isn’t written in Python), those libraries will need to be compiled for iOS as well. However, if the library requires build tools that don’t support iOS, such as a compiler that can’t target iOS, or a PEP517 build system that doesn’t support cross-compilation, it may not be possible to build an iOS wheel.

The BeeWare Project provides the Mobile Forge project to assist with cross-compiling iOS binary wheels. This repository contains recipes for building the packages that are stored in the secondary package repository. Contributions of new package recipes are welcome, and can be submitted as pull requests. Or, if you have a particular package that you’d like us to support, please visit the issue tracker and provide details about that package.

### Requirements cannot be provided as source tarballs

Briefcase cannot install packages published as source tarballs into an iOS app, even if the package is a pure Python package that would produce a `py3-none-any` wheel. This is an inherent limitation in the use of source tarballs as a distribution format.

If you need to install a package in an iOS app that is only published as a source tarball, you’ll need to compile that package into a wheel first. If the package is pure Python, you can generate a `py3-none-any` wheel using `pip wheel <package name>`. If the project has a binary component, you’ll need to use Mobile Forge (or similar tooling) to compile compatible wheels.

You can then directly add the wheel file to the `requires` definition for your app, or put the wheel in a folder and add:

    requirement_installer_args = ["--find-links", "<path-to-wheel-folder>"]

to your `pyproject.toml`. This will instruct Briefcase to search that folder for compatible wheels during the installation process.