Native AOT support for iOS-like platforms

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.