Xamarin.forms — Gone, but not forgotten

Credits: Trailhead Technology

What is Xamarin and Xamarin.Forms?

Xamarin.Forms is an App Development technology created by Microsoft in 2011. Developers can create user-friendly applications using Xamarin.Forms. These applications are built for Windows, iOS, or Android and are also optimal to function on platforms like Apple TV, Android Wear, etc.

Being an open-source platform, Xamarin offers cross-platform solutions to developers to build native applications using an abstraction layer that manages the communication of shared code with underlying platform code.

Developers use .NET and C# to create all types of applications that are 100% native and work on a varied range of Operating Systems and Devices. Henceforth giving a native performance, look, and feels to each kind of user.

Various industries have been using apps developed through XamarinForms like e-commerce, media and entertainment, healthcare, etc.

Technical Architecture

Xamarin uses the Mono execution environment for both iOS and Android platforms. For iOS, the Mono execution environment runs along with Objective-C runtime and Unix kernel. Anyhow for Android, it runs along with Android Runtime on Linux or another kernel.

Xamarin.Forms use various object-oriented programming concepts such as encapsulation, abstraction, and polymorphism.

It includes Xamarin.iOS, Xamarin.Android and Xamarin.Windows libraries that allow developers to create separate UI for each platform. All of these apps function on the same backend structure made using Xamarin.Forms.

What are the benefits of Xamarin.Forms?

According to the company’s reports, more than 15,000 companies and 1.4 million developers were using Xamarin.Forms in 120 countries as of April 2017.

Bosch, Siemens, Slack, Pinterest, and others are among the most renowned customers. Here are some benefits of the technology.

Cross-Platform Development

While having full access to native APIs and toolkits used on Android, iOS, and Windows platforms, XamarinForms provides native (or near-native) design and performance for every application. Such as PassKit, StoreKit, CoreMotion, and similar features on iOS. Similarly, the apps can also use Tiles on Windows Phone or Google Play Services and NFC on Android. Thus, you will get all the unique elements in one place and make one solution with platform-specific interfaces.

Less Clock Time and Low-Cost mobile app development

A sharable codebase and a single technological stack save the clock time spent on the app development cycle. Developers can utilize the API provided by the framework to create user interface views completely with source code. It gives them creative liberty to use Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) that helps to define the user interface.

This means you can release your product faster. It is an optimal solution for companies with limited human and hardware resources. The app development, testing, and deployment are significantly streamlined when one team performs.

Extensive Support and Community

Developers usually form a community to share knowledge as soon as they start to show interest in technology and adopt it in their development process. A strong community aids developers in learning from each other and solving the problems they are facing.

Xamarin has great developer support in resources, tools, and a mature framework. XamarinForms popularity has been consistently growing with the community growth. Also, several industry leaders have based their solutions on this platform which proves its reliability and efficiency.

Simplified Maintenance

It is relatively easy to maintain apps developed with XamarinForms as they share code. If you need to update applications and fix some issues, you can do it in the source code, and all the changes are applied automatically to other solutions. Again, it saves time, developer involvement, and finances.

Testing

Xamarin Test Cloud and Xamarin Test Recorder allow developers to test and monitor application UI and performance, offering a comprehensive solution. However, third-party testing frameworks like Appium, XCUITest, or Expresso can also be used. Developers use these tools to run automated tests on real devices in cloud storage and find performance issues before the release.

Challenges with Xamarin.Forms

XamarinForms is not an ideal fit for all projects, and there are a few inconsistencies to be listed here:

Heavy Applications

Apps built on Xamarin.Forms can be twice as big as native files and often require extra adjustments because they use numerous core libraries and functionality. The size of applications is a very critical element for their performance.

Lack of Advanced Visualization

It is not feasible to build apps with an extraordinary visual appeal on Xamarin.Forms. It limits the implementation of solutions that demand complex graphic elements or animation. It ideally does not cater to gaming apps or apps with advanced visual language. But since it is an open-source platform, developers and agencies create their APIs and plugins to deal with this problem.

Updating Interval

Developers need to spend some extra hours on the clock updating the apps and post any system updates on the Android, iOS, or Windows devices. It usually takes time to integrate new features into the app ecosystem, which causes a delay in updates and might affect the company’s reputation.

What are the alternatives to Xamarin.Forms?

Various open-source platforms and frameworks allow developers to build an application using a shared logic of code like XamarinForms. Here are some:

• React Native
• Flutter
• Cordova
• Ionic Framework
• PhoneGap
• Native Script
• Swift
• Android Studio
• Apache Flex
• Unity

Conclusion

XamarinForms make cross-platform app development a feasible task due to its various features. The community has grown extensively post the Microsoft acquisition for the past five years. With shared resources and limited team capacity, Xamarin.Forms offer clients affordable low-cost mobile app development.

Nowadays, a lot of companies use Xamarin.Forms as a primary tool and hiring a professional agency simplifies the task at hand to a greater extent. This app development technology does not let programmers compromise on quality, which bails out the time spent developing these apps.

One can weigh the opportunities through this app and earn profits based on scalability, business expectations, and market trends.