How to Save Your Time and Money with Xamarin.Forms for App Development

Be it iOS or Android app development, most developers first go for Objective-C vs. Swift and Java. As native tech stacks, it goes without saying that they are the most often used mobile development tools for iOS and Android app development.

However, there are several additional choices for developing effective and user-friendly mobile apps. Xamarin is one of them, and this is what you need to know about the unique cross-platform mobile application development platform.

What is Xamarin?

Xamarin is a well-known cross-platform framework that developers employ to create native-like and well-functioning apps. It was founded in 2011 and later purchased by Microsoft in 2016.

After Microsoft bought it, the Xamarin SDK became an open-sourced platform and made it freely available via Microsoft Virtual Studio. More than 15,000 companies from various industries, including energy, transportation, and healthcare, are presently using the framework.

Xamarin uses a single programming language, C#, in conjunction with the.NET framework for mobile app development for various platforms and demands. It also uses XAML, which is a markup and data binding language for apps to comply with these demands.

It serves as an abstraction layer that permits platform-to-platform communication of standard code. The apps may be written and then compiled into native application packages (.apk for Android and .ipa for iOS).

What is Xamarin.Forms and Why You Need To Consider It for App Development?

With Xamarin.Forms, you can share both business logic code and UI code, which makes it easy to have one shared code to cross complied to generate iOS, Android, and Windows UWP apps.

To develop an app, it uses the standard user controls like Button, Label, Entry, ListView, Image, StackLayout, Calendar, ContentPage, MasterDetail Page, TabbedPage. If you wish to create a button by using Xamarin.Forms, it will figure out how to call the native button for each platform.

This is only possible due to the usage of Binding Library. Binding Library permits calling Java or Swift code from C#. With Forms, you can yield around 60–90% of the code. By doing that, you can save your budget, time and the whole tedious process lessen by half when it comes to developing a mobile app.

On the other hand, Xamarin only allows sharing logic code, not UI code, unlike Xamarin.Forms. The creation of UI code is possible by creating it twice for Xamarin.iOS, and Xamarin.Android separately.

What are the benefits of Xamarin.Forms?

Developers may create mobile apps in two ways, according to Xamarin. The first is to employ Xamarin. iOS and Xamarin Android, which debuted earlier and was once thought to be more competent.

The second method is based on Xamarin.Forms. It is a more sophisticated version that enables quick prototyping and the creation of apps with fewer platform-specific features. That is why Xamarin.Forms are best suited for projects in which code sharing is more critical than custom UI.

Xamarin.Forms can help you reprocess up to 99% of the code without building for each platform individually and developing one single interface and sharing it across platforms.

You may also create applications that use Xamarin.Forms for portions of their user interfaces and other components are created with the native UI toolkit. As Xamarin.Forms evolved over time; it became a universal tool with a thriving community that cares about it.

For example, certain technology vendors, such as Telerik UI, offer libraries that enhance engineering skills by supplying pre-configured UI components.

What are the disadvantages of Xamarin.Forms?

• Access to Open-Source Libraries Is Limited

Open-source technologies are heavily used in native development. With Xamarin, you must leverage the platform’s parts as well as some. NET open-source resources, addressing both developers and consumers.

While the selection isn’t as extensive as it is for developing an Android and iOS mobile app, you may use NuGet Packages, which now include everything that was in the defunct Xamarin Components.

• Professional and enterprise use comes at a high cost

If you’re an individual developer, you can surely opt for Xamarin, which is a free, open-source platform. However, the framework may be too expensive for commercial purposes.

For example, if you’re looking for an e-commerce app development platform and considering Xamarin.Forms for that, it’s the Visual Studio license cost that will burn a hole in your pocket.

Be it Visual Studio Professional, which costs $1,199 for the first year and $799 for renewal, or Visual Studio Enterprise license, which l cost $5,999 for the first year and $2,569 for renewal.

• Xamarin.Forms Will Be Extinct Soon

Last year, in May 2020, the annual Microsoft Build Conference was held, and it was shown that Xamarin. Forms will be merged with.NET to produce a new cross-platform app framework called .NET Multi-platform App UI, or MAUI. MAUI will have a fully native UI and will have access to all native APIs.

In addition, as part of the ongoing .NET unification, Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.iOS are two examples of cross-platform app development that will ultimately be included in.NET 6 as .NET for iOS and .NET for Android.

It will be modified to match other .NET workloads. The timeframe for this is uncertain at this moment, so stay tuned for future developments. Meanwhile, the Xamarin.Forms migration is scheduled for November 2021.

Xamarin will be sustained for another 1 year once MAUI is published. So, if you are currently working with Xamarin or intend to create new Xamarin apps, keep an eye on the dates and search for Microsoft instructions to ensure a seamless transition.

What are the alternatives for Xamarin.Forms?

If you’re looking for alternatives for Xamarin.Forms, there are few to name with:

1. React Native: Facebook built React Native, an open-source mobile application framework. To develop user interfaces, React Native consolidates the greatest aspects of native development with React, a world-class JavaScript toolkit.

2. Flutter: Google’s Flutter is an open-source UI software development kit. It’s used to make apps for Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, Google Fuchsia, and the web. Dart is the programming language used to create Flutter applications. Flutter is Google’s UI toolkit for creating attractive, natively built mobile, web, and desktop apps from a single codebase.

3. Iconic Framework: Ionic Framework is a free, open-source mobile UI toolkit that allows you to create high-quality cross-platform apps for native iOS, Android, and the web from a single codebase. Ionic was established in 2012 and is built on the foundations of AngularJS and Apache Cordova.

Hire an app development agency to create a user-friendly app within your budget

When weighing the merits and negatives, the aforementioned negatives are typically seen as a casualty.

The Xamarin.Forms mobile app development platform is preferred by most business owners because it takes less time to create the app and release it in the market, and the engineering cost is far much lesser compared to other platforms.

If you’re looking to create an app to flourish your e-commerce business or small business, make sure to hire an app agency or a freelancer who is fluent with Xamarin.Forms to make the best out of your app for your customers.