MICROSOFT XAMARIN.FORMS

With the increasing number of people using the Internet via smartphones and tablets, mobile app development has become a basic necessity for every business especially ecommerce because of its unique ability to access a large number of potential consumers. With the latest frameworks and new apps launching every day, the mobile application development has become one of the fastest developing industries in the world. Therefore, opting for app development is quite fundamental in order to succeed in this fast-paced growing industry.

To most of us, when considering app development for Android or iOS, the first thing that comes to our minds is Objective C, Swift or Java because they are most frequently used mobile development tools. However, there are other amazing options as well for you to build user-friendly mobile apps. And Xamarin.Forms is one of them!

What is Xamarin.Forms?                 

Microsoft Xamarin.Forms is an open source UI framework that allows developers to swiftly create cross-platform user interfaces; it is a cross-platform natively backed UI toolkit abstraction that allows developers to easily create user interfaces that can be shared across Android, iOS, Windows, and Windows Phone.

It allows the developers to create Xamarin.Android, Xamarin.iOS and Windows Application from a single shared codebase. UI is created in XAML with code written in C#. The user interfaces are rendered using the native controls of the target platform, allowing Xamarin.Forms applications to retain the appropriate look and feel for each platform.

It is the best choice for the developers who-

• Want to share UI layout and design across platforms.
• Want to share code and test across platforms.
• Want to build cross-platform apps in C# using Visual Studios.

Xamarin cross-platform appdevelopment quickly became the choice of most of the developers after its introduction in 2011. Most business owners choose this platform for ecommerce app development due to the plethora of benefits it provides.

So without wasting the time any further, let’s check it pros and cons…

What are the benefits of Xamarin.Forms?   

Choosing to built cross-platform applications with Xamarin.Forms have several important benefits-

1. Native User Experience-

Because of its complete access to native APIs and toolkits used in Android, iOS and Windows, Microsoft Xamarin.Forms provides native design and performance for every application. This is because of the specific elements and technologies available in C# and Visual Studios.

• .NET developers get full access to Android and iOS SDKs when using Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS.
• Its library, Xamarin.Essentials, provides access to core overlapping native APIs.

2. Shareable Code-

Write Once. Use Everywhere.

This development platform creates about 60-95% reusable code; a single source-code can run on different platforms providing native performance and might require minimal changes only thus making it the best choice for cross-platform apps.

3. Time Saving and Cost Effective-

The shareable source code saves a lot of time spent on the development cycle. Code is written once and then most of the code can be reused, with slight changes, if required. This means that the product can be released earlier.

Since everything is written within .NET framework, there is no need to build separate teams to work on the app, thus less personnel and hardware resource.

4. Easy Maintenance-

When using Xamarin.Forms, maintaining apps is extremely easy because of the shared code. Whether you want to update the application or fix certain issues, you just need to make the changes in the source code and every change will be automatically implemented to other solutions.

5. Automated Testing-

This platform proposes inclusive solutions to test and scrutinize UI and application performance. Xamarin Test Cloud and Xamarin Test Recorder tools allow you to run automatic tests on multiple real devices in the cloud and find performance issues before the release.

6. Microsoft’s Tech Support Services-

Microsoft provides comprehensive customer support services backed with well-organized documentation and educational and training opportunities including Xamarin courses thus supporting developers while improving their expertise.

What are the disadvantages of using Xamarin.Forms?                 

Like any other framework, this one also has its challenges some of which are discussed below-

1. Heavy Applications-

Solutions provided by the Xamarins framework can be twice as big because of the numerous core libraries and functionalities they use thus requiring additional storage which may be critical for some projects.

2. Platform-Specific Limitations-

Despite being close to native development, some limitations are bound to face when developing source code for multiple platforms. Some examples of the current limitations of the Xamarin mobile app development are-

Xamarin Android Limitations	Xamarin iOS Limitations
Limited dynamic language support	Limited generics support
Limited Java generation support	No dynamic code generation
Partial Java generics support	No remoting
	Some .NET API limitations

3. UI & Graphics Code Shareability-

On an average, only 60-80% code can be shared anywhere, mostly business logics and some APIs and GUI (all thanks to Essentials and Forms). The rest of the code can be a hassle thus cancelling the code-sharing benefits.

4. No Complex Graphics –

With all the complex graphics and animations, it can be quite difficult to build appealing apps. Hence this framework is not the best choice for advanced animations or gaming apps. Even though it is not impossible with the platform being open-source; developers can create new APIs and plugins and create new possibilities.

ALTERNATIVES TO XAMARIN.FORMS  
                 

Some of the best alternatives to Xamarin framework are-

1. React Native–

It is an open-source JavaScript framework used for developing Android and iOS based mobile applications. Codes created using React Native are written in JSX and JavaScript. Due to its open-source nature, the code can be easily shared between various platforms.

2. Flutter–

Flutter, which is also an open-source mobile UI framework, is created by Google and available for free. It is used to develop cross-platform applications for iOS, Android, MAC, Windows and Google Fuchsia using a single codebase.

It comes with customisable widgets thus a modern reactive framework. It should be kept in mind that Flutter uses a single codebase while React Native uses CSS, HTML and JavaScript for application development.

3. NativeScript–

Another alternative is NativeScript; it is an open-source platform that primarily uses JavaScript for developing mobile apps with native mobile functionalities. NativeScript supports Vue JavaScript and Angular frameworks. 

4. Iconic–

It is a popular open-source, front-end framework used for developing Android and iOS applications allowing easy and smooth development of a native mobile user interface. It is an HTML framework which is developed on top of Angular JS and Cordova.

5. Phone Gap–

Formerly Apache Cordova, Phone Gap by Adobe, is a software development tool specifically made for the development of mobile applications. Using this framework, a developer just needs the web development languages like HTML, JavaScript and CSS to develop an app; the knowledge of a mobile programming language is not required.

6. Unity–

This game engine is one of the excellent cross platform frameworks that offer support to 25+ platforms. It helps to develop the most innovative 2D and 3D games and AR and VR-based games.

Conclusion-

It is clear that to develop the best application one requires the perfect open-source framework. Clearly, Xamarin.Forms is one of the pioneers in this category. It’s always a better option to hire an app agency if you are planning to go mobile because they can guide you better.

Also, if you think we missed out a point or so or maybe you know some other framework that you find intriguing, please feel to mention it in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you!