In this article by William Smith, author of Learning Xamarin Studio, we will configure our operating system.

(For more resources related to this topic, see here.)

Configuring your Mac

To configure your Mac, perform the following steps:

1. From the Apple menu, open System Preferences.
2. Open the Personal group.
3. Select the Security and Privacy item.
4. Open the Firewall tab, and ensure the Firewall is turned off.

Configuring your Windows machine

To configure your Windows machine, download and install the Xamarin Unified Installer. This installer includes a tool called Xamarin Bonjour Service, which runs Apple's network discovery protocol. Xamarin Bonjour Service requires administrator rights, so you may want to just run the installer as an administrator.

Configuring a Windows VM within Mac

There is really no difference between using the Visual Studio plugin from a Windows machine or from a VM using software, such as Parallels or VMware. However, if you are running Xamarin Studio on a Retina Macbook Pro, it is advisable to adjust the hardware video settings. Otherwise, some of the elements within Xamarin Studio will render poorly making them difficult to use. The following screenshot contains the recommended video settings:

To adjust the settings in Parallels, follow these steps:

1. If your Windows VM is running, shut it down.
2. With your VM shut down, go to Virtual Machine | Configure….
3. Choose the Hardware tab.
4. Select the Video group.
5. Under Resolution, choose Scaled.

Final installation steps

Now that the necessary tools are installed and the settings have been enabled, you still need to link to your Xamarin account in Visual Studio, as well as connect Visual Studio to your Mac build machine. To connect to your Xamarin account, follow these steps:

1. In Visual Studio, go to Tools | Xamarin Account….
2. Click Login to your Xamarin Account and enter your credentials.
3. Once your credentials are verified, you will receive a confirmation message.

To connect to your Mac build machine, follow these steps:

1. On your Mac, open Spotlight and type Xamarin build host.
2. Choose Xamarin.iOS Build Host under the Applications results group.
3. After the Build Host utility dialog opens click the Pair button to continue.
4. You will be provided with a PIN. Write this down.
5. On your PC, open Xamarin Studio.
6. Go to Tools | Options | Xamarin | iOS Settings.
7. After the Build Host utility opens, click the Continue button.
8. If your Mac and network are correctly configured, you will see your Mac in the list of available build machines.
9. Choose your build machine and click the Continue button.
10. You will be prompted to enter the PIN. Do so, then click the Pair button.
11. Once the machines are paired, you can build, test, and deploy applications using the networked Mac.

If for whatever reason you want to unpair these two machines, open the Xamarin.iOS Build Host on your Mac again, and click the Invalidate PIN button. When prompted, complete the process by clicking the Unpair button.

Summary

In this article, we learned how to configure our operating system. We also learned how to connect to your Mac build machine.

Resources for Article:

Further resources on this subject:

• Updating data in the background [Article]
• Gesture [Article]
• Making POIApp Location Aware [Article]