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Native AOT support for iOS-like platforms

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Starting from .NET 9, Native AOT supports targeting iOS-like platforms. The term iOS-like platforms refers to Apple platforms that use similar APIs such as: iOS, MacCatalyst and tvOS.

Based on the use case, the support can be divided into:

  • support for applications and libraries referencing OS-specific APIs
  • support for applications and libraries without OS-specific API dependencies

Support for applications and libraries referencing OS-specific APIs

This refers to .NET MAUI projects targeting OS-specific target frameworks (like: net9.0-ios). How Native AOT can be enabled for .NET MAUI apps, see Native AOT deployment on iOS and Mac Catalyst.

Support for applications and libraries without OS-specific API dependencies

This refers to .NET projects targeting the general or non-OS-specific target framework (like: net9.0), for which Native AOT can be enabled in the following way:

  1. Include the following properties in your project file:

    <PublishAot>true</PublishAot>
<PublishAotUsingRuntimePack>true</PublishAotUsingRuntimePack>

  2. Publish the project for the desired iOS-like target platform by specifying adequate runtime identifier (later referred to as <rid>):

    • ios-arm64, for iOS physical devices
    • iossimulator-arm64 or iossimulator-x64, for iOS simulators
    • maccatalyst-arm64 or maccatalyst-x64, for Mac Catalyst
    • tvos-arm64, for tvOS physical devices
    • tvossimulator-arm64 or tvossimulator-x64, for tvOS simulators

    and execute the following command:

    dotnet publish -r <rid>

For specifics of building and consuming native libraries on iOS-like platforms, see How to create and consume custom frameworks with Native AOT for iOS-like platforms.