Microsoft announces Xamarin Live Player, which lets developers run and debug iOS apps directly from Windows, instead of using a Mac
“It's like giving somebody a glass of hell in ice water.” Kevin Gallo / Windows Blog : Windows is home for developers with Windows 10 Fall Creators Update Maria Deutscher / SiliconANGLE : More from Build: Microsoft unveils cross-device vision for Windows 10 Napier Lopez / The Next Web : Xamarin Live Player makes debugging mobile apps as easy as scanning a QR code Usman / iPhone in Canada Blog : iOS Developers Can Now Deploy, Run and Test Their Apps from Windows Michael Kozlowski / Good E-Reader : You can now develop and test IOS apps with a Windows PC Buster Hein / Cult of Mac : Apple is bringing iTunes to the Windows Store Tweets: Steve Streza / @stevestreza : Microsoft, Facebook, and others are investing tons into improving the iOS developer experience. WHY TF ISN'T APPLE. http://techcrunch.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the third step in Microsoft's post-acquisition Xamarin push: it first made Xamarin free inside Visual Studio and open-sourced the runtime in 2016, then shipped Visual Studio for Mac as a rebranded Xamarin Studio that November. With Live Player at Build 2017, the loop closes from the other side — the companion device app pairs with a Windows PC over a QR code scan, so the Mac stops being mandatory equipment for iOS development.
First-order effects
- Windows-based .NET developers can now deploy, run, and debug iOS apps straight from Visual Studio, eliminating the Mac purchase that previously stood between them and shipping an iOS build.
Second-order effects
- Apple's Mac loses its position as compulsory tooling for a growing class of cross-platform developers, while Microsoft gains a retention hook: developers who standardize on Visual Studio plus Live Player have less reason to leave the Windows toolchain.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — free tooling, then Mac-side IDE, then Mac-free deployment — development environments decouple from the hardware of the platforms they target, shifting competitive advantage from controlling devices to controlling the tools developers write with.
The trend: Microsoft is systematically dissolving platform boundaries around its developer tools, positioning Windows and Visual Studio as the hub for building apps that run on rival mobile ecosystems.