Developing for iOS | Qt Creator Documentation
Description: Connect iOS devices to your local machine with a USB cable to run applications on them.

- Qt Creator Documentation
- How to
- Developing for devices
- Developing for iOS
- Qt Creator 19.0.0

Use Development Containers ◦ Connect iOS devices

# Developing for iOS

> How to: Develop for iOS

Connect iOS devices to your local machine with a USB cable to run applications on them.

After you install Xcode, Qt Creator automatically detects the toolchain and creates the necessary kits to build applications for and run them on configured iOS devices.

You only need Qt libraries that are built for iOS. You can install Qt for iOS with Qt Online Installer.

## iOS 17 devices

Qt Creator detects iOS devices, and you can deploy and run applications on them.

Only C++ debugging is supported for devices with iOS 17 and later, and it requires Xcode 16 or later.

## Specifying supported iOS versions

You can build applications for the latest iOS version and deploy them to previous versions. For the most part, this works automatically. However, you must take care when you manually set your own target version. If you set it to a value higher than what Qt requires and supply your own `Info.plist` file, you must add an `LSMinimumSystemVersion` entry to the `Info.plist` that matches the value of CMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET (when using CMake), QMAKE_IOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET (when using qmake), or cpp.minimumIosVersion (when using Qbs) because iOS (and the App Store) will use the `LSMinimumSystemVersion` value as the authoritative one.

If you specify a deployment target value lower than what Qt requires, your application will almost certainly crash somewhere in the Qt libraries when run on an older version than Qt supports. Therefore, make sure that the actual build system code reflects the minimum iOS version that is actually required.

See also How to: Develop for iOS and Expressing Supported iOS Versions.

Use Development Containers ◦ Connect iOS devices