Easiest way to create mobile apps on official Meteor for Windows

Question

I want to develop a Meteor app that will be deployed for web and mobile app (Android & iOS). I will use Windows on my dev machine. I will use WebStorm as my IDE.

What are the easiest ways to get my app deployed into the app stores?

I want to minimise extra configuration effort and duplicate code.

=== Supporting info ===

Some possible solutions I've come across are:

• nitrous.io - but costs money
• Vagrant - but looks complicated

When I run >meteor install-sdk android I get This command is not yet available on Windows. since it's not supported.

I'm asking this questions in March 2015, when official Meteor for Windows is still a release candidate and there are no plans to for mobile support on Windows in the near future. (See: https://stackoverflow.com/a/27698104/1369798)

Answer 1

In December 2015, the situation is still the same. I had a hard time today deploying my Meteor app on Android. I wrote down my findings, I hope it helps you too. It's here: https://geekycarrot.blogspot.com/2015/12/deploying-meteor-app-on-android.html

In a nutshell: It is possible without buying a Mac, but you need a Linux operating system, at least in a virtual box. You need to install an Android SDK on the Linux system. Building the app from the Linux console is somewhat tricky, but it can be done by the steps I described. Deployment can be simplified to one click with a short Linux-side and a Windows-side script.

Answer 2

I am using http://www.macincloud.com since a couple of days, you can pay per hour. Those remote desktoped Macs have almost everything pre-installed you need for developing (besides the actual meteor stuff).

Definitely not a good idea if you want to check weather your app runs smooth in the ios emulator. But good enough for building and deploying iOS & Android apps!

Answer 3

Buy a Mac.

As much I loathe, them, I got a bottom of the range Mac Mini. I discovered there are many aspects of Meteor that don't work on Windows. Another one is their testing framework, Velocity.

Testing? Who needs that... :/

Answer 4

I am using Nitrous.io for anything not compatible with Meteor Windows. When you register you get enough credits to run a small VPS like the one you can have at Digital Ocean for 5$. You can also refer friends and do some other stuff to get extra credits. They also have a great desktop tool to synchronize files between the Nitrous.io and your computer. So, I think it is a good choice and definitely easier than the Vagrant option!