iOS Build size in Xamarin

Question

I am working on Xamarin for an iOS application. I just added 2-3 view controllers and the build size goes upto 8MB+. I have gone through the Tamarin Evolve video for various settings and tried that but but size is not reducing. Can anyone suggest me some settings/steps to reduce the build size?

Thanks

Answer 1

The first couple of MB of app size are the Xamarin.iOS C# runtime environment. There is no way to link thins out of your app as there is no shared runtime model on iOS as is on Android for example. Your typical Xamarin.iOS app no matter how small doesn't get much smaller than the size of the runtime + some overhead.

Answer 2

You can try to reduce the app size by playing with different Linker settings. Right click on the project file, choose Options and select Build. Under iOS Build play with the Linker options.

Also important is the build configuration. Debug builds are a way bigger than release builds in my experience.