I have been developing in Xamarin for a couple months now and I am pretty much done with an Android app. I have been enjoying using the Xamarin platform. I am now creating the iOS version of that same app using Xamarin Studio 4.2.3 and Xcode 5.1. I'm finding working on the iOS side much more painful, from a productivity standpoint, so was looking for some suggestions or tips with the areas I am having the most problems with:
The syncing between Xcode and Xamarin Studio. Am I the only one who prays when they exits Xcode hoping that Xamarin Studio will pick up the changes? I find the syncing does not work consistently and can't figure out the difference when it works and does not work. I have been hitting "Save" in Xcode and then exiting Xcode as I have seen some comments in the forums recommending this. I have lost countless changes I have made in IB that I've had to redo again. I have learned I must not build the app unless I have seen the syncing message in Xamarin Studio otherwise my changes will be lost. I find myself staring at the screen a lot looking for that messages.
Many times when the syncs works, the changes I made for new outlets or actions do not work unless I specifically do a "Rebuild" of the app. Is this expected? I wasted a lot of time chasing an issue that in the end was fixed with a rebuild.
Debugging on an iPhone. I got this to work much better when I switched to WiFi debugging as the USB debugging just didn't work most of the time. However, I find that I can't really step through code for very long before my debugging session ends. This is making it very difficult to debug issues I can't test on the simulator. I've done a lot of debugging in Xcode and never experience this problem.
Any tips, suggestions, or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Ted