Get your PC ready · Build Your Card App

By the endYou have a paid Claude plan, an up-to-date Windows PC with room to spare, and you know what a PC skips and what it does instead.

Three quick checks before the real work starts. Two of them you did in earlier parts; this is where you make sure they stuck. The third is about the one thing a PC does differently from a Mac. From here to your first screen on your phone takes about a day, often less.

1. A Claude plan with Claude Code

The Code tab only works on a paid plan: Pro and Max (and the Team and Enterprise plans for companies). If you stayed on Free, the step "Choose a Claude plan" in Part 2 shows how to upgrade. Pay month by month. Expect $20 a month when you pay month by month for as long as you are building.

To check: open the Claude app, click your initials at the bottom left, then Settings. The plan name is next to your account.

2. An up-to-date PC with free space

The step "Keep your PC updated and with free space" in Part 1 showed how to update Windows and free space. Check again now: click Start, then Settings, System, Storage. You want at least 50 GB free. Then click Windows Update at the bottom of the list on the left. If an update is waiting, install it now and come back.

3. No big download: what a PC skips

On iPhone

On a Mac, this step starts a very large download: Xcode, Apple's building tool. Xcode does not exist for Windows, so there is nothing to download and nothing to install. Here is what happens instead:

Part 5 shows your app on your iPhone through a free app on the phone, over your home Wi-Fi. That works the same on a PC as on a Mac. Nothing from Apple is needed.
The real version of your app, the one that installs by itself and later goes to the App Store, is made by the toolkit's online build service (Part 0, step 2). Your PC sends the files up, a Mac in the service's data center does the Apple part, and the finished app comes back to your phone. Part 12 shows that, when it is time.
There is no pretend iPhone on a PC. Your own iPhone is your test screen from the first day. Keep it charged and nearby.

On Android

Nothing extra to download now. Part 5 shows your app on your Android phone through a free app on the phone, over your home Wi-Fi. Android's own building tool, Android Studio, is not needed until Part 12, and the guide tells you when.

If your PC has an Arm chip

Most Windows PCs have an Intel or AMD chip. A few laptops have an Arm chip (the step "Install the Claude app on your computer and your phone" in Part 2 showed how to tell: Settings, System, About, under System type). Everything in Parts 4 and 5 works on both. The building tools come in an Arm version too, and Claude picks the right one. If an installer ever says it can't run on your PC, tell Claude; it finds the other version.

If you are on Windows 10

Parts 4 and 5 work on Windows 10, as long as it has its latest updates. Microsoft no longer gives it free security updates (see the step "Keep your PC updated and with free space" in Part 1), so plan to move to Windows 11, or a newer PC, before your app goes live.