The “Package” Ionic service will create an iOS version of the App without needing a Mac. But when you need to upload the software to iTunes it still requires Xcode or Application Loader, which both only run on a Mac.
Is there a way of uploading the final *.ipa file without use a Mac?
There is this service that you can use, but they require your Apple credentials, so you have to trust them:
https://www.wenz.io/ApplicationLoader
The other way is to use on of the many “mac mini in the cloud” services where you get remote access to a Mac hosted in a data center. This will take a bit more time of course, but with practice works quite well.
I tried the MacInCloud service and uploaded via that. I first had to put the file in DropBox to transfer, then ApplicationLoader could read from that.
It worked, but it was clunky. It’s a shame Ionic cannot offer this as the final step within the Package service.
The concern is that it would have to ask you for your Apple ID credentials. Apple won’t like that.
Surely it would be possible for Ionic to ask for an Apple id/pwd that is passed directly to Apple for login, and is never stored permanently at Ionic?
It would mean asking for the id+pwd for each upload, but that would still be far easier than the alternative(s).
Not really, as you would enter it at an Ionic website and nobody would know what actually happens with the data you enter. They could say “Oh, we only use it and don’t save it anywhere” but there is not way to check this.