Add Bitcode support for iOS

[eseidelGoogle]

Apple may eventually require Bitcode support for iOS. It's currently required for submissions to tvOS and watchOS stores.

We've seen Dart's toolchain produce Bitcode as a demo:
https://medium.com/dartlang/dart-on-llvm-b82e83f99a70

This bug tracks (eventually) turning that demo into a production solution.

[ngocdaothanh]

Bitcode support is also being added to Kotlin-Native:
JetBrains/kotlin-native#1564

[ngocdaothanh]

Hi, is there any progress on this feature?

[dnfield]

Additional reason:

• In an Add2App scenario, anyone using Flutter in their app can no longer use bitcode, and all targets/projects in their workspace will have to disable it.

[wederchr]

Hi Team,

I understand that Bitcode support is not a high prio feature for most Flutter users. However, for security critical apps Bitcode support is crucial since most app hardening frameworks rely on it. Meaning apps that need to be hardened (e.g. for legal reasons) cannot be developed with Flutter. Would you kindly reconsider the prioritization of this feature?

[eseidelGoogle]

@yapcwed I would like to learn more about that use case. Can you point us to some example hardening frameworks which depend on bitcode?

[evant]

https://www.guardsquare.com/en/blog/bitcode-ixguard is one

[magnatronus]

Hi,

so as far as I understand this is causing the issue I have put on StackOverflow here:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53048589/adding-a-watch-app-to-a-flutter-ios-application
Which means that no iOS Flutter based apps can have an associated WatchOS app added to them.

Is this correct?

[eseidelGoogle]

@magnatronus looks unrelated to bitcode, but I don't know for sure. @xster or @dnfield might.

[dnfield]

tvOS and watchOS stores require bitcode.