Why is Xamarin a good choice?

In the previous article we considered different approaches in mobile apps development. So it becomes clear from it, that cross-platform development is an optimal solution for most applications. It helps you to reduce development costs and increase the number of users.

All of this can be achieved through the benefits of cross-platform development:

• Less resources for the app realization on several platforms. Cross-platform approach — the same code runs on iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Thus, it needs fewer developers engaged in this project. In view of this, number of working hours and project budget are reduced.
• Less time for development. It usually takes less time for creating complete products due to the modern technology and the possibility to use similar interface on both platforms.
• Using a single app logic. The built logic in the app operation will surely work for all platforms equally. Consequently once written and adjusted logic contains potentially fewer errors and discrepancies in its work. You’ll not have to do work twice or even more times on searching problems on each platform. If there are some bugs, they only need to be fixed in a single place by one person at a time (instead of many different locations).

There are many cross-platform frameworks, each of which has its advantages and disadvantages. After weighing all the pros and cons, our company chose Xamarin.

What is Xamarin?

Xamarin — is a framework for cross-platform mobile app development with the use of C#. Xamarin technology provides high performance compiled code with full access to all the native APIs so you can create native apps. Also Xamarin allows to keep native UI across all target platforms, thus preserving native performance. So you have full API coverage, shared codebase and application logic. Another key benefit is the possibility to reuse tools and most importantly — the code. As the result — it saves time and resources.

Xamarin provides good infrastructure and automation, which help to save time. This is by virtue of:

Xamarin University. This is a live, online training with Xamarin experts. If you have strong skills in cross-platform mobile development in iOS, Android, and Windows using the Xamarin platform, you will get the Xamarin Certified Mobile Developer badge.

DevOps. This is a new software development methodology. It focuses on communication, cooperation and integration between development and operation.

TestCloud. This is a cloud-based service that allows users to automatically do UI Acceptance Testing of mobile apps on hundreds of different devices.

The most popular applications сreated with Xamarin

Pinterest is the world’s catalog of ideas, which has 100+ million monthly users. This app helps you to search, save and do things you love. Here you can find style inspiration, recipes and other ideas, known as pins, and then save these pins to one of your own boards. Pinterest does not generate its own content; it draws from many resources around the web and compiles them in one convenient location for users. You can download Pinterest from the App Store or Google Play.

Slack is a messaging app for teams. This is the perfect way to gather the whole team in one place. It helps over three million daily users to organize their team conversations in open channels. Messenger provides a simple interface, built around thematic chats and personal messages. A large number of external services can be integrated in Slack, such as Dropbox, GitHub, Google Docs, Twitter, Trello. Slack guarantees a good user experience with agile DevOps.

This app helps you to find showtimes and buy tickets. Here you can watch movie trailers and read information about different movies. Furthermore, it allows you to share showtimes, cinema locations and information about the movie via email, Facebook or Twitter. This Xamarin app can be downloaded for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone. Cinemark has over 6,700 five-star ratings on the Google Play Store.

This app makes it easier to conduct complex surveys anywhere in the world. With the app, the World Bank can collect population survey data from tens of thousands of peoples, while at the same time retaining confidentiality. The application are used in more than 30+ countries and 50 survey projects. It supports complex logic, automatically customizing questions based on prior answers.

This app helps you to create video-stories. You choose photos, select a timeframe and the length, style of the story, add your favorite song — your video-story is ready. Storyo is used in 170 countries and it is available for Android and iOS. It has about 50,000 installations on the Google Play Store.

Over 15,000 companies rely on Xamarin: Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated, Honeywell, McKesson, Alaska Airlines, Crédito Agrícola. And here is why:

• Less time to learn. Do you want to become a qualified developer in a short time? Try Xamarin! Xamarin requires to know only one language — C# and one key set of classes in order to be successful on both platforms.
• The development of native iOS, Android and Windows Phone applications with the use of C#. Unlike Appcelerator, code is not interpreted at runtime, but it is compiled directly into native code. Therefore, operation, interface and performance are identical to native apps.
• There are a huge number of components (plug-ins) for increasing the capabilities of Xamarin.
• Xamarin contains all unique features of each platform, for instance not only standard .NET classes, but also iOS-specific .NET classes and Android-specific .NET classes.
• Fewer errors. Since Xamarin involves the writing of less code, it means fewer bugs you will make. Thereby, you will have more time to test your application and, accordingly, your application will be available in market soon.