Hello-World iOS App in Assembly
8 comments
·October 30, 2025sanskarix
This kind of thing is how you actually learn what's under the hood. Everyone's building with React Native and Flutter, which is fine until something breaks. Then you're stuck Googling black magic. Starting from assembly teaches you the real cost of abstraction.
internetter
Is this really low level though? Because its hooking UIKit which is very high level relative to ASM. I'd be really curious to see an app draw on iOS without UIKit. I don't know if thats possible.
starmole
Super cool! Would love to see the build/deploy steps needed.
anta40
Even better if build steps are provided
azhenley
I’m guessing even this still requires that I use XCode.
dadoum
It probably doesn't, as you practically never need Xcode for simple apps. From my experience, currently, you need Xcode to compile storyboards (NIB/XIB files) and bundle Assets.car (macOS BOM files); and compile Xcode projects, btw. I may be missing another important feature used in a lot of apps but otherwise for the most part you can build an iOS app without Xcode (or even macOS).
abnercoimbre
Is that true? What about the command-line version?
There is also an iOS app implemented in C here:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/10290255/8427