[solutionyogi]

If you really want to make silly app, use Objective C + XCode. You still will have to pay 100$ for Apple Developer program.

What I have an objection to is the idea of 'pay if I succeed' model. Clearly the OP is not talking about a silly app given away for free. He wants to make money selling software but refuses to pay for tools which can help him create the software faster.

[fryguy]

There at least is a bit of precedent for it, given the Microsoft BizSpark program, and a couple of the game engines are significantly cheaper/free if the company's gross is less than some number. I'm not saying that Xamarin should do that, but it seems like making it cheap/free to lock in the codebase to the Xamarin development stack, and then having a point where they have to eventually pay makes sense.

(and using objective C/XCode are pretty much at the bottom of my list of things I ever want to do in my life)