Microsoft has just announced that Visual Studio for Mac would be introduced at the Connect() conference kicking off on November 16, as it’s aiming to empower Apple customers with the same coding tools as their Windows colleagues.
Specifically, Visual Studio for Mac is designed to run on macOS but is essentially the same as the Windows version of Visual Studio, so customers who already tried it on Microsoft’s own operating system should feel no difference.
Redmond explains that the UX is inspired by Visual Studio, but the looks have been adapted to look and feel like a native macOS solution. Just like on Windows, Visual Studio for Mac comes together with Visual Studio Code.
“Compatibility is a key focus of Visual Studio for Mac. Although it’s a new product and doesn’t support all of the Visual Studio project types, for those it does have in common it uses the same MSBuild solution and project format. If you have team members on macOS and Windows, or switch between the two OSes yourself, you can seamlessly share your projects across platforms. There’s no need for any conversion or migration,” Microsoft explains.
Visual Studio for Mac was designed from the very beginning with a mobile first, cloud first approach in mind, which is CEO Satya Nadella’s strategy at Microsoft since he replaced Steve Ballmer at the helm of the company.
This means that Visual Studio for Mac can also come in handy for projects aimed at iOS, Android, and Mac with Xamarin, and server deployment with .NET Core with Azure integration.
