Develop iOS Apps Without a Mac, on Windows with Xamarin Hot Restart
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- čas přidán 3. 08. 2024
- That's right, with Xamarin Hot Restart you can develop iOS apps straight from Windows, without ever having to own a Mac. In this video I will go over what Xamarin Hot Restart is exactly and how to get you started with development in Visual Studio 2022. Last but not least: I tell you the secret on how to even publish your app to the App Store... FOR FREE!
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⏱ Timestamps
00:00 - Develop iOS Apps Without a Mac!
00:17 - HUUUUGE THANK YOU!
01:10 - What is Xamarin Hot Restart?
03:01 - Setup Hot Restart
04:47 - Install and Setup iTunes
05:51 - Connect Physical iOS Device
07:57 - Login with Apple Developer Account
09:18 - Run iOS App From Windows on iOS Device
10:48 - Outro: How To Publish To The App Store?
🎥 Video edited with Camtasia (ref): techsmith.z6rjha.net/AJoeD
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This is really awesome, just thinking that I won't need a macos to develop apps for ios makes me very excited! unfortunately I haven't bought an apple account yet but now I'm thinking about doing so, thanks so much for sharing this information!
It will cost you 100 Dollar for 1 year to try it out. That isn't cheap, but shouldn't be insurmountable as well... Let me know how it goes!
@@dotnetdevni as mentioned, that can be done with an Azure DevOps build agent. You will need to generate a certificate, that can be done with Mac in Cloud or maybe someone you know that has a Mac that you can borrow for a minute. Still cheaper than 2000 Dollars :)
Hey Gerald. I loved this video. I can't wait to try this out on my Windows machine. Also...you should consider making a video about publishing an iOS app to the iOS store with Devops. Publishing an iOS has been one of our biggest developing pains as a mobile app developer.
I’ll see what I can do! Thanks for the kind words!
@@jfversluis Do you have an update on this?
Not yet unfortunately
How cool is that?
I love it! That is so important information for me, thank you Gerald! :)
There definitely are a few things to note here so check the docs and comments here, but it’s great stuff!
I listened to this on 2x and am amazed at how many words the brain can process and understand a second 😂😂
Haha that is absolutely true!
It’s because of his voice!! Not every CZcamsr you can listen at 2x!
Thank you? 😅
Hey Gerald, I missed this video, just had a look yesterday by chance. Thanks for the message and for your content which is really great. As you asked, I'm from Italy but I've been leaving in Switzerland on the Geneva lake since a long while!!
wuhu another swiss guy in here XD
Hi Gerald, thanks for your video, it's very informative.
Can you expand a little on these:
- 3 hosted Mac machines on your devops or app center
- CI-CD pipeline
Does it mean:
- with the paid Apple Developer account I have access to 3 Mac VMs for no extra charge?
- I don't need a physical Mac for getting the right certificates?
If your answers to the above are both no, can MacInCloud completely replace my need for a physical Mac?
Thanks in advance!
Thank you for the video, I was about to give up as I thought it’s impossible to develop an iOS app without a mac, but you proved me wrong :) I got a question though, I read that Hot Restart doesn’t support assets, so it means no custom images and icons without publishing? Have you test it?
Sorry for the late reply here Catherine. Glad to have proven you wrong! To be honest I don't know all the details about that. I think you can set everything up with the images but it just won't show which is of course not ideal. The best experience will still be if you have a Mac available, but this should allow you to do a lot of the development. If you want to check you can put your app through TestFlight or maybe use a service like MacInCloud to just add details like these through a Mac
That's great and it really works! Hope I knew this before I bought a Mac only for Xamarin development - where I only ever have extremely long build times btw. However, do you have another tip why I can't reach breakpoints in my referenced default Xamarin project?
Hm that sounds like something that should work. You’re sure you have a debug build and the source matches the thing you’re running? Also, the breakpoint settings look ok?
@@jfversluis Thanks a lot! I just found a solution to set the debug type to portable in the iOS and all referenced projects. This is not necessary when you paired a Mac. In addition, I had to clean, re-build and re-install the app to make everything effective.
@@MarcelPetersMG Perfect, glad you figured it out!
Can I generate the .IPA installer and be able to install it on any iPhone without having to pay a bill or connect to Apple services?
I still cannot get this to work - I always get "there were deployment errors" even though my automatic provisioning appears to target the correct team.
Another suggestion: Would you be up to showing us how to create a decent splash screen now that Android 12 does not acknowledge the former way of doing it?
This is fantastic. Does this also support code changes for things like push notifications ?
Push notifications might be tricky as there is some code in there that registers when the app is started only. But for receiving them I guess it could work
Yesterday I found another fella as my new favorite tutor, today I found you. 😮
Haha well thank you! Anything you’d like to learn about?
Nice video! it will be great if you could let us know how to publish the iso apps to apple store on windows.
Not exactly the same, but here is a nice walkthrough of the Apple Developer portal to get you started: czcams.com/video/kpZi5xAvpZA/video.html
Note that there are some limitations, which you shouldn't typically hit, but read up in the Docs to be sure: docs.microsoft.com/xamarin/xamarin-forms/deploy-test/hot-restart
One thing I'm not sure about is needing a Mac to create a certificate to create your App Store definition the first time... That would suck, but still easy-ish and cheap to do with a service like Mac in Cloud. Or just borrow your friend's Mac for a couple of minutes
Now go out and create those iOS apps!
@@efexzium this is for .NET MAUI but the process is largely the same as for Xamarin:
czcams.com/play/PLfbOp004UaYXl4_IUKO_Gz4zkovwTjcRL.html
Hi can you please show how to setup the last step you're talking about? How to setup an acute pipeline to deploy to apple store?
Hey Gerald, thank you for this video.
I was wonderint, to simply test an application without publishing it the paid Apple Developer account is still mandatory? Or could I just skip that step and eventualy how?
Yes, to use this the paid Apple Developer Account is still mandatory. It is needed to get the provisioning profile etc. to deploy the app to a physical device.
@@jfversluis Ok, thank you. There is some other way to test apps on an iOS device (just to test them, not to publish them on App Store) without the need of a paid Apple Developer account?
Unfortunately not
Hi Gerald, Love this. I am new to mobile development world... So please help to clarify these:
- Do we still need a MAC to publish app to Apple store?
- And I am not sure if a MAC Air M1 2020 (8GB RAM) is enough for Xamarin development?
Thanks
Thanks Thanh and welcome to the wonderful world of mobile development!
You still need a Mac to get the right certificates and create the final build. The easiest way is to have a Mac yourself.
That MacBook Air will work, but I’m not sure if it will be a great experience it might be slow.
Good luck!
@@jfversluis Thank you :) - I may try that one - so expensive here :((
I get this weird thing where I get it working in one project, but it doesn't work in another. "there was an error while trying to create a new certificate"
Bro THANK you so much!!! 🙏🏻
You’re welcome!
Simply Awesome!
Glad you think so! Thanks!
Hello, thanks for the video. Do you know if the publish process can be done with MacOS running on VMWare ?, is like having a physical Mac I think :)
That will probably work like a physical Mac indeed. Beware that it is illegal though 😉
Great video, thanks. Do you need the paid account if youre not going to publish to AppStore? I just want to play around with it
Yep, unfortunately you need a paid account for this to work
Awsome. Do you have a video for punlishing a app to app store for apple?
Not at the moment :)
I bought a new Mac last month 😞
but never mind, it’s great! 🙂
Haha well you know, the best experience is still with a Mac. Personally I do most of my work on a Mac and I love it. But it’s good to know this exists!
I remember looking into this (correct me if I'm wrong or something has been updated) but I believe you can use purely windows for development (with ios device), generating the ipa (with azure devops pipeline), but I think you still need a mac to generate the cert? All of that is only on the first publish though. All updates after that can just be done through devops I believe.
Ah that might be right... Although not sure, do you need a cert to actually create the app definition on the store? I should check that...
Also, the cert expires every year. So you’ll have to generate a new one. In addition if your app uses Push Notifications, Apple Wallet, Notification Extensions, those cert requests will also have to be generated on a Mac and they expire every year as well.
@@EvilCodeMunkee all a matter of 10 minutes with Mac in Cloud :) but true!
@@jfversluis Please answer me, so I need to pay 99 dollars to be able to only debug from windows?
@@SebastianReyesjsrc1990 No you pay 99 dollars to be able to release your app in the store. But yes, then it’s also usable to debug on windows with that
Thank you Gerald!! Could you please make a video of how can we upload from windows machine to azure cloud server an iOS application?
Not sure what you mean by this, sorry :)
@@jfversluis I mean how publish application in appstore from a windows machine. Without Mac
Hello, I am a Mac/Linux user. I noticed that you were recording your desktop on Windows OS. What Video recording software are you using to share your screen? Thanks!
I have a bit of a complicated setup. The machine I work on and the machine that I record on are two separate machines. I have an Elgato Game Capture in between and use OBS to record
Sooo nice bro
Could you please
Explain how i can create developer account on Apple
That should be a pretty straightforward process :)
This is the best news for 2021!!!
Funny thing is it has existed well before this year 😅
Thanx for the tutorial. I do have question ,Is doing it with iPhone 5 or 6 Ok?👍
I don’t think the latest iOS versions are supported on that? So while it might work, you still wouldn’t know if it works well with newer devices
Hello i want to ask you three question first i want book sample how yo do program like web brosser music player and sample for making probram for hotel restaurant stock sevond i want language base to make system like windows and how to do it third can you know how to do system like linux and ubuntu
I'll do this for few months, didn't get mac cz no-one around me or my college use iOS. So got a Zephyrus G14, but I'm planning to buy the Mac mini in a year once i have the budget.
I hope you’ll find budget for it soon!
I have been trying to use this hot restart future for a while but still the result is a bummer. The app can indeed installed to iphone but after tapping the app it instantly closes without any errors on the logs or output logs. I hope in the future this will be working smooth on all possible device.
Have a close look at all the output logs. There probably is something in there. If you feel there is a bug please report it through Visual Studio with Help > Report a Problem.
Hey Agente, have you been able to fix the problem?
Thanks for everything. I am from Paris
Thank you Guy! Appreciate that! Hello from the Netherlands 🇳🇱!
An error occured while executing mtouch tryed many ways how can i achieve this.... pleas help me
Thank you
The music while waiting for iTunes to download. 🤣🤣🤣🔥💯
Little waiting music 😏
Very very good. Awsome
Thank you!
Excellent video and thanks for the efforts. Can i do the same under Linux like Mint, Ubuntu?
Thank you! Unfortunately you can only do this from Visual Studio on Windows
Thanks. I tried it out now with Win10 + iPhone 11 phyical device + USB cable as you said, using Visual studio IDE 2019 and it worked nicely, hoping Microsoft will still support Xamarin forms!
Forms is supported until May 2024 so not that long
hey gerald! in the minute of 08:51, when it comes to select a team, mine is blank and i can't even choose anything, it can't even give me to click the Finish button :( please help me here :((((
Great Video Gerald!... how can we do the same using MAUI?
It should work exactly the same :) I tried it and it gave me an error though so I guess there is still a little bit of work to be done on our side to make it happen, but all the rest should be exactly the same as I’ve shown here
Does it build the app in the clould then download the compiled app to the local iphone device ? Or eveything is done locally ?
Everything is done locally
You are a great guy
Thank you so much!
Hey Gerald , any nuget package for stories with progress bar (like imstagram stories eith progress) for xamarin forms .? And thnak you for your great contents
Not that I know of, but you should be able to make something yourself with the progress bar in Forms, just add one for each story :)
Thanks!
Why does it require paid Apple developer account? As I understand Hot restart needs provision profile and Apple can create free profile for 7 days (as it does in Xcode).
There is a weird limitation (not sure if it is Apple limitation), that I firstly have to build app in Xcode and only after that I can build it in Visual studio. (It creates profile on device under the hood)
Not sure to be honest :) I know there is some pre-built app that they are using so they need the certificates for that to get it on your physical device. Maybe that's not possible with the free account?
For this you don't need to have Xcode at all.
@@jfversluis it’s an interesting topic to investigate how Apple generates free provision profile on Mac.
Maybe it’s limitation on Windows, if we don’t have connection to macOS.
@@VladislavAntonyuk
How i can upload to Apple store with windows
Muy buenos todos tus aportes Gerardo, consulta, funciona para iPhone con versión de iOS 15? yo probé y no me dejo, tengo un iPhone 6 con iOS 14.4 y funciona muy bien. Saludos desde Argentina.
Hey Christian! I have been to Argentina, that is so cool! :D Anyway, it _should_ work for iOS 15, however I think there are issues with Hot Restart now in general unfortunately. The team is working very hard to fix it... Hopefully soon!
Been a new dev to mobile, i followed your instructions and ended up stuck on the developer registration because apple is telling me that i need to purchase membership. Is there around this?
Nope! As mentioned explicitly in the video, you will still need a paid Apple Developer account
Hey great stuff, does this work with MAUI too?
Yes it does!
@@jfversluis I was hopeful, had just tried it out but unfortunately, the default MAUI app (file -> new project) just terminates while on the splash screen. I'm not seeing any errors anywhere, it just ceases to run.
FWIW, the reason is MAUI itself being too slow and iOS terminating the app during initialization due to it exceeding the allotted 20 seconds. Just grab an iPhone / iPad from around 2016 and you should be hit with this every single time you try to deploy.
Hello dear friend, I have a question, the Apple ID you enter must be my mobile Apple ID or can we enter any Apple ID?
It needs to be the Apple ID that has an active Apple Developer Account attached
It's a nice feature though u still need a Mac if u don't have at least two iPhones due to different Screen sizes. It's a complete different experience with a SE or Modell 13.Then u want to test also the different screen sizes of the iPads. So u need another two devices. Unless u really don't care how the experience of your App is. 😅
You could use App Center test for that! But sure if you want to test all those things the best experience is still a Mac :)
@@jfversluis with App Center Test u cannot run the App in a simulator, can u?
Even better, it runs on physical devices and you can pick old iPhones all the way to new iPads
@@jfversluis 🤯 that's aweeesooome. I'll give it a try. Thx for the info! I was sceptical so far because it's another framework u have to deal with.
@Gerald Versluis I have problem. I have paid apple developer account and when I want to run my app on my Iphone11 but after I select my account i reacive error "this request is forbidden for security reasons authentication error. xcode 7.3 visual studio" I dont understanw what i did wrong and how I should go around with that.
At the moment Visual Studio has issues with this scenario due to unforeseen changes on the Apple APIs for this. It’s being worked on!
Do you have to have the paid version in order to sign in while using windows?
Unfortunately yes
This does not work on my computer - says 'No valid iOS code signing keys found in keychain. Please enable Automatic Provisioning from the iOS Bundle Signing page' ... Automatic provisioning is enabled though....
🤷♂️ didn’t run into that, so not sure what is going on for you, sorry
Hello, is possible to install application on IOS without have a developer license ? I just need to install an application on three phones from a windows computer.
Unfortunately not
is there possible to get .ipa file using this method?
There is an ipa involved but you won’t be able to release that to the App Store if that’s what you’re asking
I’m trying really hard to make this work, but when visual studio ask to manually open the app, when I do that, it just closes. What a bummer.
Too bad! Does it has something useful in the output logs?
I have an HP envy windows 10 laptop, i have apple email, can I still use my hp envy laptop to create apple apps, publish apps to apple store, n how, can I also develop android apps, could I use Xcode or does xamarian replace Xcode swift
The final build always needs to happen on a Mac and you will need to get certificates on a Mac. What is shown in this video only works for development
Hi Gerald. I just updated my VS2019 to version 16.11 (required for Xamarin Hot Restart), paid for Apple Development Account, etc. I was able to connect to my apple account, detect my iPhone on VS, but there is a message saying that was unable to load certificates and for some reason I need Xcode7.3 otherwise it is not possible to make automactic provision. How is this even possible? Can't find any solution over the internet and already paid for 1 year to have a developer account. Any ideas?
Just generated a CSR certificate file using OpenSSL. Now I am about to install VS2022 as well and later I will try to load my apple account again and see what happens.
I think this flow is bugged right now. I think you can make it work with the latest VS2022 preview but you have to take some manual steps
@@jfversluis hi, thank you for the reply. I've just created a brand new VM with Win10x64 + VS2022, but we still have same problem regarding apple account provisioning even taking manual steps. There is a Microsoft thead opened about this issue.
@@jfversluis thanx for all , Is ?? xcode run with VS2022?
Nice!
Thanks!
I can't select anything in the team combobox. It just shows the "select team" and no more entries (not even my individual account) .. Do i have to create a team in my developer account?
A team should automatically be there. Maybe log out and log in again?
My developer account is the same as my icloud account .. Is this the problem?
@@jfversluis ok.. I am going to try this.. Thank you
That suggestion worked for me ..
Hey Gerald, Is there any way I can do this in Jetbrains Rider IDE?
Don’t think so
Great!!!!
It’s really cool technology!
Can we generate .ipa without mac (using just iPhone) ?
For iOS it’s ipa files :) no, for that you still need a mac
i am just start to VS Xamarin .. i have iphone but havent macos.. i want learn to develop i phone app... can i developing app with free Account ? i was tryed to get developer account but its show me purchase page..
As mentioned in the video, you need a paid Apple developer account unfortunately
8:10 Do you need to pay? It’s says I have to register as a app developer even though I’m just trying to hook up to my iPhone
For this to work you will need to have a paid Apple Developer account, yes
@@jfversluis is there no way of getting around paying all that money at all
Unfortunately not
which app can i download in iphone physical device
Not sure what you mean :)
Hello, anyone else getting error on the part with Setup hot restart? I am getting "Invalid request, Service mapping to the requested URL is not available". Any ideas?
If you're having any issues report it through Visual Studio. Under the Help menu go to Provide Feedback > Report a Problem.
One can create apps and submit them without paid apple developer account?
Not using this method. For this method to work you will need the paid account. If you develop on a Mac directly I think you can do it without the paid account
Will this work on the iphone 13 with the M1 chip?
I think it should, yea!
I have an Enterprise Apple Developer account and automatic provisioning seems to be a problem 😔
Oh really? That is weird... If you believe there is something wrong there please report it through Visual Studio with Help > Report a Problem
me too... always the same error..."A valid provisioning profile for this executable was not found."
hi, did you find a way to do it with an Enterprice account?
@@anthonyhernandez5414 Yes. Not sure if it applies to all, anyway, what I did were 2 things. First. I asked my company to provide me an account that doesn't require federated login, because VS doesn't support the popup sign-in when logging into Apple account; and, I also asked for "Admin" level access in order to get around the automatic provisioning problem. Originally I had "Developer" access and that level of access didn't allow me to do automatic provisioning. Hope these helps.
Hi Gerald, thanks for your videos. I have been following your videos quite a lot these days, just started on .NET Maui. I had one question. I don't own a Mac neither do I own an IPhone. Is there a way to develop for IOS. Is there a possibility to use an Mac emulator on windows PC and somehow connect with visual studio for testing out on iOS
Thanks Nirmal, appreciate that!
Unfortunately without either of those it’s not possible to develop for iOS. The Simulator does not run on Windows.
I think on the technical side there is nothing that prevents it from being able to work, however Apple just doesn’t release it for Windows and in fact through their license agreement they prohibit macOS from running virtual and needing iOS apps to be built on macOS. Not much we can do about it unfortunately.
Hope the video will help me
Hope so too!
I have purchased iPhone 2 weeks ago and cannot purchase developer account. Always get error. I don't understand why people are still developing for ios.
Sorry to hear that! What seems to be the problem?
@@jfversluis it says "Purchase failed". Now I waiting for ITunes support response
Hope it will get sorted soon!
@@jfversluis finally, I've paid 100 USD. iTunes support helped me with this. Now I'm waiting when my enrollment will be continued.
Great!
Is the VS 2022 issue resolved for .Net MAUI
Not sure what issue that was, sorry. I don’t use this much myself so I guess you’ll have to try :)
Damn... No one I know owns an iPhone... Still stuck... I heard it was possible with a mac vm, just don't know where to get one...
Probably is possible, as per the license agreement it’s also illegal…
How about publishing?
What about it? :) I talk about it in the video
I'm from Nepal
Very cool! Welcome! Here all the way from the Netherlands!
How do you get paid apple Developement
Have a look here: developer.apple.com/programs/enroll/
It it possible for me for learning purposes get free active membership account? I'm not iOS developer, so I don't see much sense to purchase membership for 99 bucks
Unfortunately not!
can we run flutter app
You’ll have to ask them. This only works with .NET MAUI and Xamarin :)
@@jfversluis ask to Flutter company?
@@alihyder7266 Flutter is from Google. Xamarin and .NET MAUI is from Microsoft. The technology in this video is built by Microsoft and will only work with .NET MAUI and Xamarin. I don't know of anything similar for Flutter, you will have to ask Google and/or their community.
En dan moet je een membership developement account aanmaken en per jaar 98 euro betalen.
Klopt! Zorgen dat die app geld op gaat leveren dus!
@@jfversluis Das weer een uitdaging! Of apps maken voor klanten die ervoor betalen. Die optie is er ook uiteraard.
@@richardvanopstal1058 precies. Een boel mogelijkheden. Aanschafprijs, in-app purchases, advertenties…
But i dont have iphone aswell 😃
Unfortunately there is no other way without it :(
@@jfversluis do you know expo react native
Now we know where you live :P
No you don’t! VPN for the win 😏
@@jfversluis
Wwwwooo
"Without a Mac" but you need to pair a Mac XD
This video should be: "How to build an iOS app from Windows" instead.
Then you didn’t hear what I said. I showed that it wasn’t paired to a Mac. Pairing to a Mac is NOT necessary
Damn I dont have an Iphone
Then it’s not possible 😢
He looks like Elon Musk
BRB going to buy CZcams
God i hate Apple.
They sure seem to hate us with how complicated they make some stuff 😅
Hey Gerald , Microsoft pulled out the Visual studio for Mac few months back ..so i see very little scope for the iOS development..thought windows, Samsung watch App doest not support Iphone.. and now Microsoft they should take decession not to support iOS platform , apple deserve this because they r very arrogant not supporting their development tools for other popular flatforms like winows .. nicely put their technical buz word ..Eco system ..that nothing but money minded. should i need to buy iphone and macbook after selling my kidney even for developing a test app for Iphone ?.. so this time to teach them same lession using eco system, when apple development tools margin falls low then automatically they support VM and Virutal device for other platforms..
The iOS platform is very much supported by. The video you’re commenting on shows you how to test your iOS app from Windows. Another option is to still use a Mac as a build host, that is not going away. Or use VS Code as a replacement for Visual Studio for Mac. The .NET MAUI team is using that daily. Lots of options!
The requirement to only build iOS apps on macOS is one that Apple imposes on us. There is not much anyone can do about that.