However, Xamarin Studio doesn't currently support building UWP apps, so for the remainder of this article I'll focus on Visual Studio. To get started building a UWP app using Xamarin.Forms (XForms), I ...

Xamarin also supports development on OS X using Xamarin Studio. This too is now available for free as a community edition for small teams, and is included in MSDN Subscriptions.

Using Xamarin requires a separate Xamarin license, and building software for Apple's platforms requires access to a machine running OS X to run the Apple compilers.

Microsoft this week released a third preview of the iOS Simulator for Xamarin on Visual Studio. The feature - announced at Build 2016 - allows developers to preview iOS apps on Windows.

In its continuing push towards making its tools available across platforms, Microsoft announced several integrations with the Xamarin development tools it acquired earlier this year.

Xamarin Studio IDE 6 for Mac OS X, for mobile development, brings its user interface and functionality closer to those of Microsoft’s own Visual Studio platform.

Plus, in conjunction with Xamarin's C# compilers, Visual Studio 2015 developers are now capable of building native iOS, Android, and Windows apps over a single, shared codebase.