【Sam's work life】

xtool: build and deploy iOS apps without Xcode

by Asam💻 10月 19, 2026

Found this while looking into iOS build options: xtool is a cross-platform Xcode replacement — it builds a SwiftPM package into an iOS app on Linux, WSL, macOS, and Windows.

What it covers:

Build a SwiftPM package into an iOS app
Sign and install iOS apps (xtool install xxx.ipa, xtool devices, xtool launch)
Apple Developer Services via CLI (xtool auth, xtool ds) and as a library (XKit SwiftPM product)

Handy subcommands:

xtool new      # create a new xtool SwiftPM project
xtool dev      # build and run it (screenshot below: Ubuntu + VSCode → iPhone)
xtool devices  # list devices

Why I bookmarked it: my day-to-day dev machine is Linux/Android. If I ever want an iOS companion for my QRCode scan app without buying into the full Xcode workflow, this is the kind of tool that makes it plausible — SwiftPM in, signed ipa out, no Mac required (per its README).

Screenshot from the xtool repo (VSCode on Ubuntu running xtool dev → installing to an iPhone):

Screenshot of xtool running in VSCode on Ubuntu, installing to an iPhone

Reference: https://github.com/xtool-org/xtool

Fix TTS init failure on Xiaomi (MIUI): declare TTS_SERVICE in the AndroidManifest queries block

by Asam💻 10月 16, 2026

Symptom: In my QRCode scan app, TextToSpeech init failed on a Xiaomi phone (China MIUI ROM) — status=-1 for engine com.google.android.tts, completely silent. The same APK worked fine on a Realme phone.

What I ruled out first:

Media volume was on, in-app TTS toggle was on.
Xiaomi's "Text-to-speech output": preferred engine was Google TTS, language Chinese (Taiwan), and the system "Listen to an example" test played sound fine — the engine itself was healthy.
Explicitly specifying Google TTS and adding an engine fallback list both failed the same way (system default was already Google, nothing to fall back to).

Root cause: Android 11+ package visibility. Since API 30, an app cannot see — and therefore cannot bind — another app's service unless it declares the intent in <queries>. Google TTS is a third-party app providing a TTS service; without the declaration, binding the TTS engine is silently blocked and TextToSpeech init returns ERROR (-1). Some OEM ROMs (e.g. Realme) don't enforce this strictly, which is why the same APK worked there.

Fix — add to AndroidManifest.xml:

<queries>
    <intent>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.TTS_SERVICE" />
    </intent>
</queries>

After adding this (shipped as v1.1), TTS worked on both Xiaomi and Realme.

Lesson: whenever your app binds a service provided by another app (TTS engine, etc.) on Android 11+, declare the matching <queries> entry — otherwise the bind fails silently on strict OEM ROMs.