After downloading Visual Studio for Mac, start the installation process. This is very similar to the process outlined in the first recipe. It can take a while to complete, so once again, go get yourself a cup of coffee. Creating applications with Visual Studio for Mac is a familiar experience for .NET developers coming from Visual Studio for Windows.

At the heart of Visual Studio for Mac is the Roslyn compiler that is used for refactoring and IntelliSense. The build engine is MSBuild and the debugger engine is the same for Xamarin and .NET Core applications. The software requirements for Xamarin development and Visual Studio for Mac are as follows:

• You will need a Mac running OS X El Capitan (10.11) or macOS Sierra.
• The iOS 10 SDK that ships with Xcode 8 is required. Xcode can be downloaded for free as long as you have a valid iTunes account.
• Visual Studio for Mac requires .NET Core which can be downloaded by following the steps outlined at https://www.microsoft.com/net/core#macos. You must complete all the steps listed to ensure that .NET Core is installed correctly. While you are there, make a note to watch a few of Kendra Havens' Channel 9 videos on getting started with .NET Core, at https://channel9.msdn.com/. While you are at it, have a look at the other brilliant content on Channel 9.
• If you plan to submit your applications to the Apple App Store, then you will need to purchase a developer license, which is currently priced at $99/year. You can, however, develop your applications without purchasing a developer license.

With this rather detailed checklist of requirements out of the way, let's get ready to create an iOS application.