I'm setting up my Xamarin development environment and there are issues with iOS debugging. I'd like to have a way to debug my app on iPhone, but it's not so easy. Here's the ways I know:
- Install macOS virtual machine on Windows and connect iPhone physically over USB to Windows host. But it doesn't seem legal to install macOS as virtual machine on non-Apple branded hardware (see https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1000131 and Using Mac in a virtual machine legality?)
- Use Apple hardware. Not a cheap option, and I don't want to migrate to macOS only to debug iOS apps.
- Use cloud Mac, e.g. https://www.macincloud.com. But I haven't found a way for wireless debugging iOS applications. As I see, iPhone must be physically attached to macOS hardware, which is not possible in this case.
The most convinient options would be #3. It would be great to debug iOS app on a real device using Mac in cloud. Is that possible?
Best Answer
It is possible to debug iOS apps on an iPhone wirelessly over WiFi, yes. This is a supported way of debugging in Xcode.
With Xamarin you can also debug over WiFi if you enable "Debug over WiFi" in the "iOS Debug" Build settings. However with Xamarin you need to launch the application over the USB cable. So you cannot do a fully wireless setup there.
Doing wireless debugging with a "cloud Mac" would probably require setting up a VPN connection or similar that makes it appear as though the cloud Mac is on your LAN. And it would only work with Xcode - not Xamarin.
A different approach would be to buy for example the Eltima USB Network Gate. Connect the iPhone to your local PC and use the software to connect that USB port over the network to your "cloud Mac" where it would appear as though the iPhone was physically connected. This should (at least in theory) allow you to launch and debug apps using Xamarin.