After installing Xcode, there are several other dependencies that need to be installed in order to start developing with Xamarin's tools. Luckily, Xamarin has improved the experience by creating a neat all-in-one installer.
Install the free Xamarin Starter Edition with the following steps:
- Go to http://Xamarin.com and click on the large Download Now button.
- Fill out some basic information about yourself.
- Download
XamarinInstaller.dmgand mount the disk image. - Launch
Install Xamarin.appand accept any OS X security warnings that appear. - Progress through the installer, the default options will work fine. You can optionally install Xamarin.Mac, but that topic is not covered in this book.
The Xamarin installer will download and install prerequisites such as the Mono runtime, Java, the Android SDK (including the Android emulator and tools), and everything else you need to be up and running.
You will end up with something similar to what is shown in the following screenshot, and we can move on to conquer bigger topics in cross platform development:
Xamarin has several editions, so it is good know the differences to determine which license you may need to purchase. The editions are as follows:
- Starter Edition: This is available to individuals only, and it has a limit of 64 KB of compiled user code
- Indie Edition: This is available to individuals only, and it does not include Visual Studio support
- Business Edition: This is available for companies; it adds features for Visual Studio and includes better Xamarin product support
- Enterprise Edition: This includes prime components in the Xamarin Component Store for free and much more Xamarin product support such as hotfixes and less than 24 hours response time to issues