Nearly 4 days and still no word from Xamarin. @musti I think you have your answer now. Personally, I think it's really poor of Xamarin to not comment on this post.
Xamarin has always had the feeling of a company that is spread too thin. Lots of initiatives and not enough resources to really make the product solid in all the areas they want to claim. But, they get to announce "Support for Apple Watch" in a press release.
Also, I wonder how much time is being devoted to incorporating the new open-source .net code. The support required for WatchOS 2 from LLVM might be impacted by the Mono/.net CLR updates. For me Xamarin has worked well enough most of the time, I hope their new owners double-down on the product. React Native is looking like a killer alternative.
The issue is with major changes to the LLVM implementation that includes how exceptions are handled.
This is a technical hurdle on the level of supporting 64 bit, if not greater.
This isn't the same as adding bindings to the next version of iOS.
I also wonder about the work that goes into say Xamarin.Forms, and does that mean that the features into the native tools (like say the Storyboard editor) are at a lessor priority.
The business reality with Xamarin customers is that more care about Xamarin Forms than anything else. Much more than AppleTV or WatchOS2.
That being said the engineers that work on the LLVM compiler are probably not the same ones that work on Xamarin.Forms. It's a different skill set.
I would guarantee that by Sept, bit code will be required, and that includes Xamarin.Forms of course.
You never know what Apple is going to do. It is a risk that you have to consider when using a product like Xamarin.
So far when they have a major change (32-64, bit code) there is a year before it's required.
Well if Xamarin are NOT able to get bitcode working by September, it was very fortunate that Microsoft bought them out before the sh** hit the fan. What a piece of luck that was...
This year? if so we have app with watch OS 1 supported, then before Xamarin to release Watch OS2 support, we can not to enhance our apps. But iOS 10 is coming, we may have to do something for it.
@musti said:
Well, here comes watchOS 3. Good luck to all of us.
If and when they make the support for watchOS 2, support for watchOS 3 will come quickly after. The problem is not in new APIs but that Apple requires apps to be delivered in a totally new form called BitCode, which brought great challenges to Xamarin. Take on top of that that most their clients weren't interested in, and here we come to where we are.
I haven't heard yet, but it is widely expected for iOS 10 to require BitCode, so hopefully they will take that as a top priority now - and they say it is a top priority since last week or so. We'll see, I still hope to release my first app with the watch support, but can't wait too long...
Posts
Nearly 4 days and still no word from Xamarin. @musti I think you have your answer now. Personally, I think it's really poor of Xamarin to not comment on this post.
agreed @GavinGrant, Very disappointing.
Well, there you go. No more WatchOS 1 apps for the AppStore.
https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=04222016a
How terrible slow Xamarin to support Apple WatchOS2, I am wondering if Xamarin will continue to support iOS?
Why Xamarin always be tooooooooo slow to support the new APIs?
Xamarin has always had the feeling of a company that is spread too thin. Lots of initiatives and not enough resources to really make the product solid in all the areas they want to claim. But, they get to announce "Support for Apple Watch" in a press release.
Also, I wonder how much time is being devoted to incorporating the new open-source .net code. The support required for WatchOS 2 from LLVM might be impacted by the Mono/.net CLR updates. For me Xamarin has worked well enough most of the time, I hope their new owners double-down on the product. React Native is looking like a killer alternative.
The issue is with major changes to the LLVM implementation that includes how exceptions are handled.
This is a technical hurdle on the level of supporting 64 bit, if not greater.
This isn't the same as adding bindings to the next version of iOS.
I also wonder about the work that goes into say Xamarin.Forms, and does that mean that the features into the native tools (like say the Storyboard editor) are at a lessor priority.
The business reality with Xamarin customers is that more care about Xamarin Forms than anything else. Much more than AppleTV or WatchOS2.
That being said the engineers that work on the LLVM compiler are probably not the same ones that work on Xamarin.Forms. It's a different skill set.
I would guarantee that by Sept, bit code will be required, and that includes Xamarin.Forms of course.
You never know what Apple is going to do. It is a risk that you have to consider when using a product like Xamarin.
So far when they have a major change (32-64, bit code) there is a year before it's required.
Well if Xamarin are NOT able to get bitcode working by September, it was very fortunate that Microsoft bought them out before the sh** hit the fan. What a piece of luck that was...
Maybe if more people join the thread they'll answer something. I am interested in
.
After digging a bit it is said that Preview should be available by the end of May, let's hope it does it isn't too far: https://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/57111/xamarin-ios-9-3-preview-3-for-tvos-and-watchos-2-0-in-visual-studio?new=1
Support has informed me that they are working on it and it should be available this year.
This year? if so we have app with watch OS 1 supported, then before Xamarin to release Watch OS2 support, we can not to enhance our apps. But iOS 10 is coming, we may have to do something for it.
How terrible Xamarin service is becoming to ...
Well, here comes watchOS 3. Good luck to all of us.
If and when they make the support for watchOS 2, support for watchOS 3 will come quickly after. The problem is not in new APIs but that Apple requires apps to be delivered in a totally new form called BitCode, which brought great challenges to Xamarin. Take on top of that that most their clients weren't interested in, and here we come to where we are.
I haven't heard yet, but it is widely expected for iOS 10 to require BitCode, so hopefully they will take that as a top priority now - and they say it is a top priority since last week or so. We'll see, I still hope to release my first app with the watch support, but can't wait too long...
@IvanIcin this is already supported for tvOS. If this is the holdup, I hope watchOS support is not too far.
https://developer.xamarin.com/releases/studio/xamarin.studio_6.0/xamarin.studio_6.0/#Bitcode_support_for_tvOS_apps