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Comment by _stephan | Hacker News Reader

From http://docs.xamarin.com/guides/ios/getting_started/installat...

"No iOS simulator on Windows. The iOS Simulator runs on Mac OS X, so it’s necessary to switch to the Mac’s screen when testing on the simulator."

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Our new Business edition, at $999, now includes iOS support for Visual Studio developers.

I guess you will be able to use a device from Windows, or something like that. Otherwise it won't make sense to provide iOS support for VS.

Correction - you will need a Mac for the final build of the product. VS will connect through network to this Mac ... Not sure if it makes more sense to just use VS as a glorified C# editor. I suppose if you are a hard core VS user it will be easier to do your development from VS.

Using VS would be a huge plus. You don't have to buy a bunch of pricey macs, just 1. You don't have to retrain C# coders to use a Mac. You can use ReSharper! You can open two code windows side by side, something monodevelop cannot do (not sure about Xamarin Studio as I am still waiting on the download). VS integration with Team Foundation is much better than git-tf, so if your company is already using Team Foundation you can tack on iOS development/ports with out much trouble. There are a lot of reasons it makes sense.

I don't own a Mac, but have an Ipad. If I jalbreak my Ipad, would I then be able to deploy applications built with xamarin studio or visual studio for testing?

You don't need to jailbreak your iPad, but you'll still need a Mac.

Visual Studio basically just talks to MonoTouch on a Mac to do the final build steps, to run the Simulator, etc.

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