Iphone – Create a cookie for NSURLRequest

It's certainly possible to develop on a Windows machine, in fact, my first application was exclusively developed on the old Dell Precision I had at the time :)

There are three routes;

1. Install OSx86 (aka iATKOS / Kalyway) on a second partition/disk and dual boot.
2. Run Mac OS X Server under VMWare (Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) onwards, read the update below).
3. Use Delphi XE4 and the macincloud service. This is a commercial toolset, but the component and lib support is growing.

The first route requires modifying (or using a pre-modified) image of Leopard that can be installed on a regular PC. This is not as hard as you would think, although your success/effort ratio will depend upon how closely the hardware in your PC matches that in Mac hardware - e.g. if you're running a Core 2 Duo on an Intel Motherboard, with an NVidia graphics card you are laughing. If you're running an AMD machine or something without SSE3 it gets a little more involved.

If you purchase (or already own) a version of Leopard then this is a gray area since the Leopard EULA states you may only run it on an "Apple Labeled" machine. As many point out if you stick an Apple sticker on your PC you're probably covered.

The second option is more costly. The EULA for the workstation version of Leopard prevents it from being run under emulation and as a result, there's no support in VMWare for this. Leopard server, however, CAN be run under emulation and can be used for desktop purposes. Leopard server and VMWare are expensive, however.

If you're interested in option 1) I would suggest starting at Insanelymac and reading the OSx86 sections.

I do think you should consider whether the time you will invest is going to be worth the money you will save though. It was for me because I enjoy tinkering with this type of stuff and I started during the early iPhone betas, months before their App Store became available.

Alternatively, you could pick up a low-spec Mac Mini from eBay. You don't need much horsepower to run the SDK and you can always sell it on later if you decide to stop development or buy a better Mac.

Update: You cannot create a Mac OS X Client virtual machine for OS X 10.6 and earlier. Apple does not allow these Client OSes to be virtualized. With Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) onwards, Apple has changed its licensing agreement in regards to virtualization. Source: VMWare KnowledgeBase

Adding sample code to this question because someone contacted me directly about my solution. Note that you must set the "service" parameter equal to "ah" on the initial token request.

Initial Request of Token [done synchronously] NOTE: the "service" parameter is set to "ah" and the "source" is just set to "myapp", you should use your app name.

//create request
NSString* content = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"accountType=HOSTED_OR_GOOGLE&Email=%@&Passwd=%@&service=ah&source=myapp", [loginView username].text, [loginView password].text];
NSURL* authUrl = [NSURL URLWithString:@"https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin"];
NSMutableURLRequest* authRequest = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] initWithURL:authUrl];
[authRequest setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
[authRequest setValue:@"application/x-www-form-urlencoded" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Content-type"];
[authRequest setHTTPBody:[content dataUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding]];

NSHTTPURLResponse* authResponse;
NSError* authError;
NSData * authData = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:authRequest returningResponse:&authResponse error:&authError];  

NSString *authResponseBody = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:authData encoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding];

//loop through response body which is key=value pairs, seperated by \n. The code below is not optimal and certainly error prone. 
NSArray *lines = [authResponseBody componentsSeparatedByString:@"\n"];
NSMutableDictionary* token = [NSMutableDictionary dictionary];
for (NSString* s in lines) {
    NSArray* kvpair = [s componentsSeparatedByString:@"="];
    if ([kvpair count]>1)
        [token setObject:[kvpair objectAtIndex:1] forKey:[kvpair objectAtIndex:0]];
}

//if google returned an error in the body [google returns Error=Bad Authentication in the body. which is weird, not sure if they use status codes]
if ([token objectForKey:@"Error"]) {
    //handle error
};

The next step is to get your app running on google app engine to give you the ASCID cookie. I'm not sure why there is this extra step, it seems to be an issue on google's end and probably why GAE is not currently in their listed obj-c google data api library. My tests show I have to request the cookie in order sync with GAE. Also, notice I don't do anything with the cookie. It seems just by requesting it and getting cookied, future requests will automatically contain the cookie. I'm not sure if this is an iphone thing bc my app is an iphone app but I don't fully understand what is happening with this cookie. NOTE: the use of "myapp.appspot.com".

NSURL* cookieUrl = [NSURL URLWithString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://myapp.appspot.com/_ah/login?continue=http://myapp.appspot.com/&auth=%@", [token objectForKey:@"Auth"]]];
    NSLog([cookieUrl description]);
    NSHTTPURLResponse* cookieResponse;
    NSError* cookieError;
    NSMutableURLRequest *cookieRequest = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] initWithURL:cookieUrl];

    [cookieRequest setHTTPMethod:@"GET"];

    NSData* cookieData = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:cookieRequest returningResponse:&cookieResponse error:&cookieError];   

Finally, I can post json to my gae app. NOTE: the snippet below is an async request. We can handle responses by implementing didReceiveResponse, didReceiveData, didFailWIthError.

NSURL* url = [NSURL URLWithString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://myapp.appspot.com/addRun?auth=%@", mytoken]];
    NSMutableURLRequest* request = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] initWithURL:url];
    [request setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
    [request setHTTPBody:@"my http body";

    NSURLConnection *connectionResponse = [[NSURLConnection alloc] initWithRequest:request delegate:self];
    if (!connectionResponse) {
        NSLog(@"Failed to submit request");
    } else {
        NSLog(@"Request submitted");
    }