I know that all iOS apps must be built on a Mac before they can be submitted to the App store but I've noticed that Visual Studio App center provides build services - even for iOS.
Can this be used for beta testing purposes or do I still need a Mac to do the build even for beta testing purposes?
BTW, the app is an enterprise Xamarin Forms app for internal use.
Yes, you also need Mac for Beta testing.
But I use https://www.macincloud.com for testing rather then buying Expensive hardware.
It has built in Support for Xamarin and it very cheap.
iOS not like Android you also ned Apple Developer Lic. for distribute your app.
you can purchase your Lic. as your Requirement from hear : https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/
(if you just want to check how look your app in Device you can use Xamarin Live )
Related
We've been developing a cross-platform app in Xamarin on Windows and now we are moving to make GUI for iOS counterpart.
If I'm understanding correctly we need to switch to Visual Studio for MAC, on a MAC machine, and continue our GUI development there.
Is it possible to develop everything on Windows and just publish an app on the MAC machine?
How do we include the logic and everything from the android app?
You can use Xamarin.Forms to develop UI for both Android and iOS.
But if its already native then you can still continue developing it in Windows.
For the build and testing you definitely need a MAC, if you don't want to use a VM then you can build it on the cloud using a https://www.macincloud.com/ or other party that uses the same service, and use a simulator on windows.
If its cross platform then I assume you're using a .NET Standard for the shared codebase. So there would be no problem using the same logic for both the Android and iOS.
It is up to you. Many apps will work by just publishing on the Mac. Of those many will have some artifacts that shouldn't be in the end version.
To simplify it is like asking whether you should publish the app without testing and fixing. In 99% no, but sometimes it may work.
I am doing Xamarin IOS development in visual studio, and have just learned that Xamarin Live Player does not work on the IPhone (all such links lead to only Android devices). So.. does anyone know what the minimum apple computer requirements are to be able to build IPhone apps on windows visual studio linked to a mac over the wire? Or.. Can someone point me to another way that I can build IPhone via Xamarin without purchasing such a apple computer? Feel free to redirect me to another site if this is not appropriate to post here - I figure its development related but its not a coding question so I didn't know where to post.
You can use a virtual machine (VMWare, etc.) that runs MacOS. But you will be violating Apple's EULA which states that MacOS should only run on Apple's hardware.
I'm aware that a Mac or a Mac service e.g. MacInCloud.com is necessary for building and submitting iOS apps.
My question is about the actual workflow of building an app on Windows using Xamarin on Visual Studio 2017.
We need to write code, test and debug throughout development cycle. How does this work with Xamarin running on Windows? How would I actually see what my mobile app looks like or behaves during the actual development cycle?
While developing my web apps in Visual Studio, there are many trips back and forth to the browsers and back to VS in order for me to see the results of my code. How does this work with Xamarin running on Windows? Is Xamarin Live Player the only option for development cycle? Is there a solution through MacInCloud or similar services so that tethering a device to dev machine is not necessary?
I'm just trying to understand how a healthy development cycle is created for Xamarin developers on Windows.
I will answer your question in few section: Coding, Debug, Test
Coding
You will be using Visual Studio to write your codes. iOS and Android code will be written in C#. You will get access to UI Designer for both iOS and Android to edit the layout files and storyboard/xibs. For 3rd party library, there is NuGet to serve your needs.
Debug
You can use Xamarin Live Player without connection to a Mac/MacInCloud for basic preview. However, some features of iOS is not available in Xamarin Live Player (e.g. xibs files not supported...).
If you setup with connection to a Mac, you will be able to see a list of Simulator that available in the Mac you connected to. By default, if you debug it, the simulator will still show up in the Mac. Then you will need to VMWare or remote into the Mac to check the simulator output. If you have Visual Studio Enterprise license, you can get access to a Remote iOS Simulator feature. You will need to turn the option ON. After that, you will able to see a remote iOS Simulator showing in your Windows machine without the needs to remote into Mac machine anymore. For debugging in actual iOS devices, you will still need to plug your device into the Mac. Previously (more than 1 years ago), Xamarin announce that they are working on "iOS USB remoting" to allow you to plug in iOS device into Windows machine and debug on it. But it is not release until now.
For Android, you can get access to Android Emulator Manager to add emulator to debug or you can deploy apps to physical phone just like what you can do with Android Studio.
Test
I will be referring to Xamarin.UITest for this part. You will be able to write UITest code in C# inside Visual Studio. Xamarin have product "Xamarin Test Cloud" to allow you to upload test code and binary and then run your test in cloud periodically. If you want to run the test locally in your machine, you will only able to run Android UITest in windows machine. To run iOS UITest locally, you will only able to run it in Mac machine. Using a Mac, you can also run Android UITest.
You can use a simulator/emulator instead of a device. For iOS, the simulator would run on the Mac Build Host that you are connected to. You can select the option for "Remote iOS simulator" in Visual Studio -> Xamarin.iOS options and you'll be able to interact with the simulator without having to RDP/VNC/look at the mac. For android, you can just run an emulator in Window and interact with it like that. Using your web apps comparison, you would use a simulator/emulator instead of browser but, for the most part, the process would be similar.
I have been developing a Xamarin MVVM app targeted at iOS and Android. I initially did the iOS development on Windows with VS 2022 and an iPhone attached via USB. I knew that I was going to have to eventually move to the Mac for final provisioning but I ended up taking that painful step earlier than planned because certain Xamarin features were just not working on Windows. First I could not get my app icon to be anything other than the Xamarin default and then Xamarin.Essentials.FilePicker would not select a file:
https://github.com/xamarin/Essentials/issues/1710
So after a week of struggling I finally got my project building and deploying on the Mac. However, I am not nearly as comfortable working on the Mac as I am on Windows where I have all my familiar development tools. So then the question was how to share the project files between the PC and the Mac so that I could edit and compile on the PC and then move to the Mac for final testing.
At first I tried iCloud but I could never get the files to sync reliably between the shared folder on the PC and the Mac. I am used to Dropbox and OneDrive, which work as expected. iCloud not so much.
So what I have been doing is committing and pushing the changes to github and then pulling the changes into the project on the Mac. It is quick and has the added benefit of version control using an offsite server. I am happy with this workflow and publishing the app on the Apple Store should be an easy task when that time comes.
Update:
This process is still working for me. I have taken the additional step of doing the release configuration on VS Mac and publishing my app to App Store Connect. That experience was convoluted and frustrating but it now works and I have people testing my app via TestFlight.
One hiccup is that when selecting Automatic iOS Bundle Signing in the project properties on VS Windows, this change gets pushed to the Mac side and causes a build error under Debug until I select the Automatic provisioning profile on the Mac. Somehow it gets set to the Wildcard profile on the Windows side.
I have a project in Android Studio (on a pc), and as far as I know now Microsoft owns Xamarin and its free once you have a Visual Studio license, then you can develop apps using C#(Already know that I have to port the JAVA code) and then compile in a MAC the IOS app.
My 2 concerns are:
When you can't compile, will the IDE show the IOS related errors?
There is a clear implementation of "cross platform code" vs "specific code"?
How Xamarin manage it?
In addition, our plan is to finish the app for Android which is our primary target and then manage the IOS, besides the other questions, what I need to know is if that is possible.
Yes, the VS IDE will show you build errors from the iOS build server.
Yes, you can build an Android app using Xamarin and later extend it to build an iOS app also. This is easiest if you use Xamarin Forms, but it also possible with native Android/iOS UI, but will be much more dependent on how you architect your applications.
So I relaize that to develop for IOS you need a mac if you want to use Xamarin Studio (free license). Now I was wondering if it is possible to use a VM of mac?
Also do I have to get a development license for IOS if I just want to try using Xamarin with it?
if so, is there a work around?
The OS X license requires that you use Apple hardware. There is no workaround that complies with the OS X license.
You do NOT need a paid Apple Developer Account to develop apps. The iOS SDK is available for free without a paid developer account. However, you will be limited to testing apps in the iOS simulator. To deploy apps to iOS hardware for testing you must have a paid Developer Account. This applies to developing apps with Apple's native tools as well as when using Xamarin's tools for app development.