Xamarin - Your development environment

How you set up your hardware and software depends on what mobile platforms you’re targeting and what computing environments are most comfortable for you. The requirements for Xamarin.Forms are no different from the requirements for using Xamarin.iOS or Xamarin.Android or for programming for Windows Runtime platforms.

This means that nothing in this section is specific to Xamarin.Forms. There exists much documentation on the Xamarin website on setting up machines and software for Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android programming, and on the Microsoft website about Windows Phone.


Machines and IDEs
If you want to target the iPhone, you’re going to need a Mac. Apple requires that a Mac be used for building iPhone and other iOS applications. You’ll need to install Xcode on this machine and, of course, the Xamarin platform that includes the necessary libraries and Xamarin Studio. You can then use Xamarin Studio and Xamarin.Forms on the Mac for your iPhone development.

Once you have a Mac with Xcode and the Xamarin platform installed, you can also install the Xamarin platform on a PC and program for the iPhone by using Visual Studio. The PC and Mac must be connected via a network (such as Wi-Fi). Visual Studio communicates with the Mac through a Secure Shell (SSH) interface, and uses the Mac to build the application and run the program on a device or simulator.

You can also do Android programming in Xamarin Studio on the Mac or in Visual Studio on the PC.
If you want to target the Windows platforms, you’ll need Visual Studio 2015. You can target all the platforms in a single IDE by running Visual Studio 2015 on a PC connected to the Mac via a network. (That’s how the sample programs in this book were created.) Another option is to run Visual Studio in a virtual machine on the Mac.


Devices and emulators
You can test your programs on real phones connected to the machines via a USB cable, or you can test your programs with onscreen emulators.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach. A real phone is essential for testing complex touch interaction or when getting a feel for startup or response time. However, emulators allow you to see how your application adapts to a variety of sizes and form factors.

The iPhone and iPad emulators run on the Mac. However, because Mac desktop machines don’t have touchscreens, you’ll need to use the mouse or trackpad to simulate touch. The touch gestures on the Mac touchpad do not translate to the emulator. You can also connect a real iPhone to the Mac, but you’ll need to provision it as a developer device.

Historically, Android emulators supplied by Google have tended to be slow and cranky, although they are often extremely versatile in emulating a vast array of actual Android devices. Fortunately, Visual Studio now has its own Android emulator that works rather better. It’s also very easy to connect a real Android phone to either a Mac or PC for testing. All you really need do is enable USB Debugging on the device.

The Windows Phone emulators are capable of several different screen resolutions and also tend to run fairly smoothly, albeit consuming lots of memory. If you run the Windows Phone emulator on a touchscreen, you can use touch on the emulator screen. Connecting a real Windows Phone to the PC is fairly easy but requires enabling the phone in the Settings section for developing. If you want to unlock more than one phone, you’ll need a developer account.

Source of Information : Creating Mobile Apps with Xamarin.Forms