Deploy Xamarin.iOS App To iOS Device Without An Apple Developer Account

Introduction

In 2011 Xamarin announced great and happy news to all c#.net developers: We can develop ios applications using xamarin .

Isn 2016 Microsoft announced that they had acquired Xamarin and all the visual studio developers can develop ios and android applications, without paying any extra.

iOS developers can do testing in simulators if they want to test the device. You don't need to buy an Apple Developer account, which costs 99$ /year.

On June 8 2015 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference Xcode version 7 was announced and the good news is you can develop and test your apps on your iOS device without a paid Apple Developer account.

This is great news for all iOS developers. Before uploading to the store we can do testing of ios applications from a device without any payment.

In this article, I am going to share about how to deploy xamarin.ioS applications to iOS devices using free provisioning files

Requirements

1. XCode 7 or higher

• Go to Mac machine and verify Xcode version is 7 or higher; if it’s not update xcode

2. iOS 9 or higher
3. Create free Apple ID from here.

You can follow the below steps for how to setup and deploy xamarin.iOS applications into iOS devices.

Step 1 Add Apple Account from Xcode

In mac Machine, Open Xcode , Xcode Menu >Preferences > Click on Account tab > Select + Add Apple ID > login with Apple ID

Click on View Details and create a sign in identity and click on create button next to iOS development

Step 2 Create XCode project

Xcode > create new project > project name as “testapp” > Connect iphone /IPad from mac machine > Select your device and press run button

You will get Code Singing issue

Issue 1 Xcode 7 Project requires a development team

If your using XCode 7  you will get following error

Select your Team as below from Project Options and General tab

Issue 2 Xcode8 Code signing Error in Build Error

If you are using Xcode 8 or above, the code signing error will appear while building xcode project

Solution

Step 2.1

Go to the ioS project editor

Step 2.2

Select the General Section

Step 2.3

Select Check box for Automatically managing signing

Step 2.4

Select the Personal Team you created earlier from the ‘Team’ dropdown in the ‘Signing’ section

Step 3 Trusting the certificate from device

You will get the following error: could not launch “Your app name “

In your iOS device > open the Settings > go to general > Device management (if you’re not getting this option redeploy the application)

You will see the email address associated with the Apple ID you used to code sign your app.

Tap it, then tap ‘Trust <your_email>’

Now go back to xcode and run the application

Step 4 Update bundle Identifier from Xamarin Project

In Xamarin.iOS project , Goto Info.Plist file > Change Bundle Identifier (use same xcode project bundle identifier)

And make sure from project options and select IOS bundle signing > Signing identity select your apple account

Select your iphone device from xamarin.ios project and click on run the application.

I believe this article will be helpful for you to deploy applications to ios devices. If you have questions /issues/feedback please share it in the comments box .