Double-click on the installer you downloaded from the Visual Studio website. You will see that your version of Visual Studio 2017 is displayed and a Modify button is visible. Click on the Modify button:
This will display the available workloads for you. Under the Mobile & Gaming section, ensure that you select Mobile development with .NET. Then, click on the Modify button in the lower-right corner:
There is also a second step we need to take if we want to use Xamarin to target iOS applications. We have to install the required software on a Mac. Head on over to Xamarin's website on your Mac. The URL is https://www.xamarin.com/. Click on the Products drop-down and select Xamarin Platform from the list:
You can also access the required page by going to https://www.xamarin.com/platform. Clicking on the Download now for free button will install something called Xamarin Studio Community on your Mac. You need to be aware that when installed on a Mac, Xamarin Studio cannot create Windows apps. It will only allow you to create iOS and Android apps on a Mac. Along with Xamarin Studio, you will also get the Xamarin Mac Agent (previously called the Xamarin build host). This is a required component so that you can link your PC to your Mac in order to build your iOS application. Lastly, the PC and Mac must also be able to connect to each other over a network (more on this later).
After downloading the installer on the Mac, the installation is straightforward. You will notice that there are a few options to choose from the installation screen: Xamarin.Android, Xamarin.iOS, Xamarin.Mac, and Xamarin Workbooks & Inspector. If you wanted to target Android as a platform, you would install Xamarin.Android. To target iOS (iPhone or iPad), you will need to select Xamarin.iOS. To create fully native Mac applications, you must select Xamarin.Mac. Lastly, Xamarin Workbooks & Inspector gives developers an interactive C# console that integrates with app debugging to aid developers when inspecting running apps. For now, we're only interested in Xamarin.iOS. Just follow the screen prompts and complete the installation. Depending on your selection, the installer will download the required dependencies and install that on your Mac. Depending on your Internet connection, you might want to go get a cup of coffee:
Lastly, if you have not installed Xcode from the Mac App Store, you should do so now before continuing:
