What is Xamarin and why it’s a safe bet for mobile app development

Xamarin is an American company, acquired by Microsoft, whose main product is an open source software of the same name. Let’s see its features and advantages.

INDEX

Advantages of Xamarin.

Features of the platform.

Mono, Xamarin’s main project.

Advantages of Xamarin

The company Xamarin was founded in 2011 by Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman, in the San Francisco area. Its main function is the development of mobile applications on the three main operating systems: Windows, Android and iOS.

Before launching their company, both entrepreneurs had already done things together. Their first open source product was Mono, which they released in 2001. This project would be very important for the development of Xamarin, as we will see later.

One of the ideas around which the platform was developed was that it could be easily shared and rewritten. And so it was, currently, 90% of Xamarin can be shared between developers of different platforms. Around this axis, derives the rest of its advantages, which can be summarized as follows:

Create cross-platform native apps

Unlike other technologies that allow you to create cross-platform applications, Xamarin ends up generating applications with a 100% native appearance. Moreover, many professionals consider it the best platform to develop native apps for smartphones or mobile devices, especially for its controls and interface.

A single code to program all platforms

Let’s forget about having one team per platform with this tool. Although they will be used in different operating systems, Xamarin allows you to program in a single language. In this way, we can reuse the existing code of the application for another platform. All this without giving up the native appearance of each one, or lowering its performance.

Access to the native APIs of each platform

We can use the same API to create apps for the main operating systems on the Windows , Android and iOS market. In addition, as we have indicated before, this system allows us to share and reuse the codes.

Compatibility with all peripherals on each platform

One of the effects of being compatible with all SS. OO. Main, is that it is also with its peripherals. In fact, the process of integrating with them is quite straightforward. Simply make SDK of each mobile system. For example, Xamarin.Android works perfectly with Google’s most successful devices: Android Wear, Fire, Google Glass, etc. The same goes for Apple and Microsoft.

Development is done with XAML and C programming languages #

To use Xamarin we only need to have knowledge of a . net developer. With this training you will be able to create or modify applications using the open source platform. This means that it is a tool that is at the service of a wide range of developers.

On the other hand, when you create an app with Xamarin, you don’t really make an adaptive mobile model app. This does happen with other cross platform solutions. What makes this tool unique is that the development focuses on both mobile and desktop solutions. This is another example of its versatility. The application can be integrated into multiple environments and across systems.

Platform Features

Unique language

Xmarin uses only C# to program on all operating systems. As we’ve said before, you can create apps with a native look and the same performance.

It is based on the framework.NET,

which gives it a bunch of useful features per se. In addition, since the programming language is so popular, there is almost no risk of unforeseen code changes.

Automated compilation

Both Android and iOS apps have automated compilation. In addition, they are adapted to solve certain common problems, such as memory allocation. In the case of iOS, it has ahead-of-time competition (native ARM code). For Xamarin.Android, they are first compiled in the intermediate language, and then end up using AOT.

Has a standalone product

Xamarin.Forms was designed to create simple mobile apps or prototypes that share 100% of the code for Android and iOS. It’s like a testing tool before launching the final product.

Adaptability

One of the most important aspects at the user level is the interface of your mobile, that is, the user interface. For customers, a familiar look builds confidence. Xamarin is able to adapt to the design of each operating system impeccably.

Mono, Xamarin’s main project

Many may be shocked that a company like Microsoft, with well-known paid software, bets on free software. And it is that Xamarin became, in a short time, the object of desire of the multinational.

Microsoft announced its .net framewok in mid-2000. At that time, one of the founders of Xamarin, Miguel de Icaza , who was employed at the Ximian company, began working on a new version of Inux. The result of these studies was the Mono project, which was launched a year later. In 2003, Ximian was bought by the multinational Novell.

However, in 2011, Attachmate bought Novell and laid off hundreds of its workers, including the creators of Mono. The future of the project was in question. A couple of months later, Miguel de Icaza publicly announced that Mono would be supported and dependent on Xamarin. A then-unknown company with ambitious mobile product ideas.

At the time, Novell announced that it would license Xamarin forever so that it could develop Mono, MonoTouch, and Mono for Android. In this way, the new company would remain as the official manager of this project.

In short, when developing mobile applications for the main platforms (iOS and Android), the most popular programming languages come to mind. Java, Swift and Objective-C are preferred. Xamarin is a more unknown tool but it is stomping on the world of programming. It is open source and its main value is its simplicity and its ability to share code between various platforms.