Build Xamarin App On Mac

Xamarin.Mac, as with Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android, gives developers up to 90% of code reuse across Android, iOS and Windows. Xamarin.Mac gives C# developers the ability to build fully native Cocoa apps for macOS and allows for native apps that can be put into the Mac App Store. Nov 16, 2017  Simply select Hosted macOS Preview for your build or release pipeline. The agents’ list of installed software can be found here. The macOS image is shared by VSTS and Visual Studio App Center. It always includes recent versions of Xcode, CocoaPods, and fastlane, along with Android and Xamarin. Feb 22, 2017  Building apps with Xamarin.Mac is a great way to build powerful apps for macOS that harness the power of C#. In this blog post, we created a basic Pomodoro timer application for macOS. If you want to learn more about Xamarin.Mac, check out the Xamarin.Mac documentation and get involved in discussions on the forum! Apr 27, 2019  In this video, I'll show you the steps to build your first iOS application in Visual Studio 2019 with C#,.NET, and Xamarin. We will see how to build a basic app, connection to the macOS host, and dep.

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I don't have a physical Mac at the moment but I have a IPhone which I love! So how do I get my app running on my phone?

If you are like me this guide will help you get your Xamarin app to your IPhone (and your testers IPhones) without needing to buy a Mac!

TL'DR

To be able to run Xamarin apps legally on your IPhone you will need a physical Mac you'll need to buy an access to a Mac in the cloud.

I can't find information on it but the reason for you needing a Mac to build iOS code is either:

  • Apple hasn't made 3rd parties it easy to use their build chain (XCode,etc) so they haven't invested in it
  • Apple just doesn't allow it (Eula)

But the fact is that you will need a Mac (legal or not) to build your iOS code so it will run on your phone.

Me and Xamarin

I have been doing Xamarin development on and off since 2014 and dabbling in XCode/ objective-c for 1.5 years in 2011.

I have been doing some light teaching of Xamarin.Forms so I have the developing skills up to date (even though Xamarin is moving fast these days).

But in the last 2 years I have just been using the simulator and this year the LivePlayer in Visual Studio to develop the code.

Its been a long time since I connected a local Mac to Visual Studio to get the apps to my physical device.

The weekend project

Build Xamarin App On Mac

So this weekend I wanted to try out some code on my IPhone. I can't use the LivePlayer since I am using the Prism framework and the LivePlayer doesn't work with 3rd party libraries.

And I didn't have a Mac to connect to! And I wasn't going to go out to buy one for this test (it might pay off in the long run though)

So what to do?

Mac in the cloud

Since I had previously (two years ago) bought access to a MacInCloud I decided to do that again since I knew (so I thought) I had some leftover prepaid credits.

What I came to realize was that I had 28 left of my 30 build minutes in the Pay-As-You-Go plan but since I had not logged on in the last 60 days it was void and I need to buy more.

While looking at the plans I saw something new, VSTS Build Agent

Connect MacInCloud to VSTS

So the next step was to connect MacInCloud to VSTS.

I managed to get this working by going over the 'Getting Started with the MacinCloud VSTS Build Agent Plan' guide. Somebody really should update this since some steps were not straight forward in my case.

Now I when I build an iOS app it will use my MacInCloud to do it.

VSTS (Azure DevOps)

So what I first thought of was to open up VSTS and check if I could use the build tasks there to build and deploy a app.

So I added a Xamarin.iOS build step and got this (overload).

I tried to config and run this build and got some errors and warnings so I decided to quit that route and try something else and easier to start up (AppCenter).

I know VSTS is very powerful because I work with it every day. But I just wanted to get my mobile app pipeline up and running fast. I really didn't want to spend more time than needed setting this up.

And maybe it wasn't so hard in VSTS but I didn't want to find out. I'll try it out next time.

AppCenter

Last year I used AppCenter for building and distributing Android apps so I knew (hoped) it would be a little easier to setup.

I'm not going to show you how to setup an app in AppCenter and hook it up to your repository since they do a good job of guiding you through the process.

The build configuration

So for distributed test (Ad-Hoc) apps you will need to set up the build configuration as following in AppCenter.

And then upload your provisioning profile and certificate (that I'm going to show you how to create).

Provisioning profile and certificates (.p12)

This was the thing that took me the longest to do!

Everybody that has ever tried to get an app to the store or even to their testers know this. Articles like 'Why I hate iOS as a developer' are a testament of that.

This is totally normal when dealing with Apple but its still easier if you have a Mac!

Again this all would have been a breeze if I had had a Mac. Because then I could probably have used use the new Automatic provisioning to do deal with this all for me.

By combining Automatic provisioning with a Pay-As-You-Go subscription (paired to Visual Studio) I could have had these files.

.CSR .mobileprovision .cer .p12/.pfx

Yes.. Welcome to the jungle!

I tried to find out how to do this and just got lost fast.

I had allready found this article 'Where do I get the code signing files I need' but it told me nothing about how to create the these files on Windows.

.CSR

To create a certificate in you Apple development portal you need a .CSR file. There are millions of examples on how to do it on a Mac when doing iOS mobile developement. But I did´t see any (there probably are) mentioning that.

So I googled 'creating a .csr file on windows' that led me to downloading the CSR creation program where I filled out the information about me and saved the .csr file.

Then I was able to choose 'App Store and Hoc' type of certificate in the Apple portal and upload the .CSR and create the certificate!

Create a Ad Hoc provisioning profile

Next step is to create a provisioning profile for Ad Hoc. You will need a device setup under Devices where you need the UDID of your phone. You can get it by using e.g SuperUDIDI.

Download .mobileprovisionin

Download the provisioning profile (.mobileprovision). You'll need to upload it to AppCenter.

Download and install/extract .cer/.p12

Then you need to download the certificate you created. Double click it and install on your computer under your user and then export the private key to a .pfx file (.pfx .p12).

Upload .mobileprovisionin and .pfx file to AppCenter

Just that. Upload these two files to AppCenter and you should be ready to go.

Queue a build in AppCenter

Now you should be able to build the app and get a notification email where you are can just download and install the new version of the app.

There where few other problems I had getting this up and running. They where mostly easily fixed.

'Project bundle identifier 'com.companyname.xx' does not match specified provisioning profile'

Open the Info.plist in Visual Studio and change the Bundle Identifier to the one you set in the Apple development portal.

You don't get an email after successful build?

I was so excited when the build got green! It said 'App distributed'. I waited for 20 minutes and no notification!

For some reason I (the only user anywhere) wasn't in the distribution group! So just make sure you are in the group set to get the updates.

So is it worth it or should I get a Mac?

I think I will look around and see if I can find a used older Mac Mini after this trial month. Lets see how many hours of build time I really need.

But at the moment I will be developing Xamarin.Forms using the simulator. And when I want/need to try the app on my IPhone I will just queue a build.

Summary

I'm sorry if some steps in here aren't as super detailed as I think they need to be.

The reason for it is that I thought setting this all up wouldn't be a problem. Specially after watching so many (obviously 'hello world') CI/CD videos.

I just didn't start taking notes on what I was doing until after I was c.a 30% done.

If I ever need to do this again or help somebody else to do it I'll add more details to this article.

But I really hope somebody learned something reading this.

p.s
Will it pay off in the long run just to buy a Mac Mini? Yes I think so. It would take c.a 1 year to pay up the Mac Mini vs. MacInCloud, so I'm thinking of getting one eventually.

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Do you have an idea for an app and want to turn that into reality? Well, if you want to build that app for iOS, you need to know Objective-C, which is an old, C-based language. The alternative is to learn Swift. If you want to build the same app for Android, you need to learn Java. And if you want to build this app for Windows, of course you need to know C#.

Sounds like a lot of headache. It’s not just about learning different programming languages. It’s about the fact that each platform has its own UI framework which is built with a different architecture and API.

Building apps shouldn’t be that painful. Is there a better way? Yes there is: Xamarin Forms.

Xamarin Forms is a UI framework for building native cross-platform mobile apps with C#. You code your app only once, and let Xamarin compiler build your app for each platform. As simple as that! You don’t need to learn 4 different languages and presentation frameworks!

In this course, Mosh, author of 9 five-star courses on Udemy, will take you on a pragmatic and step-by-step journey and teach you how to build native mobile apps for Android, iOS and Windows using Xamarin Forms and C#.

In particular, you’ll:

  • Learn and understand the fundamentals of Xamarin Forms and its architecture
  • Build user-interfaces with XAML and code
  • Work with images
  • Present data in beautiful, interactive lists
  • Implement multi-page apps with navigation, tabs, master/detail pages
  • Build form and setting pages
  • Store and retrieve data from a variety of sources (file system, SQLite database and RESTful services)
  • Implement Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) architectural pattern

If you’ve taken any of Mosh’s courses before, you know what you get: clear, concise training, without waffling or mocking around.

You get 7.5 hours of high-quality content and every single minute is crafted with outstanding delivery and world-class production. Mosh doesn’t create 10+ hour courses that need to be fast-forwarded or skipped.

This course is packed with real-world examples, exercises and best practices. Not only will you learn how to use Xamarin Forms, you’ll also learn first-class tips to make your code cleaner and more maintainable.

Lectures also have downloadable source code so you can code-along while watching the videos.

Build Xamarin App On Mac Pc

So, if you’re looking for a Xamarin Forms course with

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Don’t look further. Enrol in the course now and learn to build native mobile apps for Android, iOS and Windows using your existing C# skills.

PREREQUISITES

All you need to know in order to take this course is C#. At a minimum, you should be comfortable with classes, interfaces, events, delegates, lambda expressions and a bit of LINQ.

May 01, 2019  Use your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to scan documents or take a picture of something nearby and it appears instantly on your Mac. Continuity Camera is supported in many apps, including Finder, Mail, Messages, and more. Jan 31, 2012  I find your question a bit confusing. Are you wanting to actually use apps for iOS devices on your Mac? If so, you cannot use iOS apps on a Mac. IOS apps are written only for iOS devices. You would need the same app, written for Mac OS X, if you want to use it on your Mac. If I am misunderstanding your question, please disregard. Use iphone apps on mac. How to use iPhone and iPad apps on Mac It's not easy to run iPad and iPhone apps on a Mac or PC. We look at your best options, including decent simulator software that mimics the iOS experience on.

If you need to strengthen your fundamentals, you can watch Mosh’s related courses:

  • C# Intermediate: Classes, Interfaces and Object-oriented Programming
  • C# Advanced: Take Your C# Skills to the Next Level



FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

1- Do I need a Mac to take the course?

Not at all! You can use use Visual Studio on Windows to build and deploy apps to Windows and Android. You need a Mac only to build your app for iOS. And this involves simply adding a new project to your Visual Studio solution, setting it as the start up project and building it. That’s it! You don’t need to write any extra code.

So, no, you don’t need a Mac to take this course or learn Xamarin Forms in general.

2- Do I need to know about Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS libraries?

Again, no! Xamarin Forms provides a simple, unified API for you to build cross-platform mobile apps. When you build your app for Android or iOS, it will internally use Xamarin.Android or Xamarin.iOS to map the common user interface elements to their corresponding native equivalent.

You need to know about Xamarin.Android or Xamarin.iOS only if you want to build custom user-interface elements.


WHAT OTHER STUDENTS WHO HAVE TAKEN THIS COURSE SAY

“Another fantastic course by Mosh! Really well presented and easy to follow along. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to get up an running with Xamarin. I have apps up on my Android device and the whole experience has been super. Thanks Very Much!” -Aindriu Mac Giolla Eoin

“Mosh has that incredible teaching skill to start from a fundamental level and then take you on a journey to iterate and improve on to a best practice mode thereby allowing you to grasp the core concept faster. Very much recommended for anyone who has always wanted to build native Android and iOS applications leveraging your existing C# skills. Keep up the good work Mosh!” -Sachin Chitran

“I read through the entire Xamarin Forms official book as well as some other books on the topic before taking this course. I wish I had taken this course from the beginning. The concepts are explained clearly, and the exercises at the end of each section really help to solidify what you have just learnt.” -Morné Zaayman

“You will not be disappointed by Mosh. At first I saw his content on youtube and I wanted to get a more in depth grip of his courses. I can assure you that the investment is truly worth it. You will neither feel like the instructor is talking to a stone who has never programmed, nor feel overwhelmed by a lot of complex programming techniques. The way he explains is just right for the average coder looking for improvements.” -Oproiu Stefan

“This was my first paid video course ever and wow…what a surprise! Now six months later, I already bought two other courses from Mosh Hamedani because it’s a great way to learn so much in such a short time. I became a real fan of Mosh because he gives a boost to my work career.

I recommend all the developers to watch the video courses of Mosh, you will not regret! He’s a very enthusiastic instructor who can teach you difficult concept as if they were easy. The video content includes many great exercises which will challenge yourself. Furthermore, the cheat sheets are very useful to refresh your memory.” -Yen Jacobs

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This course comes with a 30-day full money-back guarantee. Take the course, watch every lecture, and do the exercises, and if you feel like this course is not for you, ask for a full refund within 30 days. All your money back, no questions asked.


ABOUT YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Mosh (Moshfegh) Hamedani is a software engineer with 17 years of professional experience. He is the author of several best selling Udemy courses with more than 120,000 students in 192 countries. He has a Master of Science in Network Systems and Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering. His students describe him as passionate, pragmatic and motivational in his teaching.

So, do you want to use your existing C# skills to build native apps for Android, iOS and Windows?


Join the other 13,000 students who have taken this course and start building your first native cross-platform app within a few minutes.

Buy Udemy’s Xamarin Forms: Build Native Cross-platform Apps with C#

Build Xamarin App On Mac Computer

Note: We have purchased this course/tutorial from Udemy and we’re sharing the download link with you for absolutely FREE. So you can learn & be your own master if you can’t afford to buy this course. But if you have money we strongly suggest you to buy Xamarin Forms: Build Native Cross-platform Apps with C# course/tutorial from Udemy. So, the course’s author Mosh Hamedani can help you if you can’t understand something or if you want to learn something spectacular.

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