First decision in any project’s life cycle is choosing the right technology for the task. In case of developing mobile applications our choice is somewhat limited unlike in web development for instance. In this article we will show you a great candidate for creating mobile applications which is the Xamarin technology.
Xamarin is a platform that is developed by Microsoft. It uses .NET environment and allows us to code in the C# language and XAML (views). What makes Xamarin great you might ask? The main fact is that by creating one code we are able to develop applications for all of the main mobile systems at the same time! By using Xamarin.Forms approach (there’s also Xamarin.Native approach but we won’t cover it here for now) code written by us will be translated into native languages of iOS and Android, allowing us to develop the application for all of the mentioned platforms. Isn’t that great?
The first conclusion that we can take out of Xamarin.Forms introduction is that it greatly reduces the time to delivery. There is no need to write separate applications for all of the systems because we are able to do it simultaneously. This ensures cohesion of iOS and Android. Any change to the code is being automatically introduced to all platforms involved. Keeping one code only allows us to control the project better without much hassle in having many repositories.
Next conclusion would be the ease in developing an application. The .NET platform grants great tools to our disposal which favors working in Xamarin.Forms. While creating the application we are easily able to separate the concerns which greatly arranges the projects structure. Xamarin.Forms has a binding mechanism that links the project structures and works well with the MVVM (Model-View-View Model) approach. We’re creating clean and practical code and we’re doing it simultaneously for all of the systems!
It is worth mentioning that in the Xamarin.Forms approach we can concentrate only on the C# and XAML. It means that we don’t need separate programmers for iOS (Objective-C or Swift) and Android (Java). The project team is thus greatly focused around .NET and doesn’t have to worry about native solutions for other systems.
Strong and important argument that favors Xamarin over other mobile approaches is that is being backed and developed by Microsoft. This world leader surely has great resources when it comes to developing and maintaining the platform. Choosing Xamarin we are aware that the platform will be continued and developed even more. We can be sure that Xamarin has the full support of the market leader.
Let’s get into the summary. If we want to create an application that has to be available for iOS and also for Android, we should strongly consider Xamarin.Forms. Writing one code only, we deliver the application at least twice as fast. This means we can enjoy our applications presence in the App Store and Google Play a lot sooner! The backing of Microsoft and the focus on one programming language surely ensures great control over the development lifecycle.