5 Things to Know Before Building Xamarin Apps

Mobile app market has been witnessing a staggering growth in the recent times. In fact, according to the findings published by Statista, a popular provider of market and consumer data, the global mobile app market will be worth $190 billion in 2020. In fact, Android’s Google Play Store had 3.8 million apps and Apple’s App Store had 2 million apps in March 2018. And when it comes to the iOS versus Android debate, you can’t find an easy answer. Businesses need to develop native applications across all the major platforms to ensure no major user bases are missed. However, the costs and time for building native mobile applications could impose significant barriers to development. That is where cross-platform app development tools such as Xamarin prove to be a boon for developers and businesses alike.

Xamarin is one of the leading open source cross-platform development technologies that use C# language and .Net framework. If you have decided to move forward with Xamarin mobile app development, then there are certain key factors you should be aware of.

Being an integral part of Xamarin Visual Studio IDE, Xamarin allows developers to create platform-specific UI code layer. Developers can access an extensive range of functionalities and features in this environment which helps in generating high-performance real-native binary code output. Deep expertise in C# is essential for creating app logic for input validation, database interactions, web service calls, backend integrations and more.

With Xamarin app development platform, it is possible to reuse up to 96% of the source code. Before Xamarin, each team of developers had their own interpretation of business rules which made it challenging to reuse the code. When you choose Xamarin as your cross-platform mobile app tool, it is easy to build the business logic in C# and share it across multiple platforms within the shortest time frame.

Working on Xamarin demands proficiency only in C# language, thus minimizing the learning curve. Moreover, Xamarin provides a ready-to-use component store and access to platform-specific SDKs for all three environment(Android,iOS and UWP), thereby accelerating the app deployment.

Sharing and validating the source code across the major platforms helps in maintaining a bug-free code. Xamarin provides both Automation Framework and testing cloud support (Xamarin TestCloud) where developers can test their application on any device in cloud. Uploading the test suite and running it on a chosen device will provide the developers a detailed report of app performance metrics and results. Furthermore, it is possible to monitor the real time performance of Xamarin mobile apps with Xamarin Insights.

Xamarin offers a number of APIs and plugins thereby addressing hardware compatibility issues in the most efficient manner. Moreover, the platform also supports linking native libraries which allows native-level functionality and better customization.

From all what we have seen, it is clear that Xamarin is a powerful tool for cross platform mobile app development that ensures faster time to market and reduced costs. However, it is crucial to partner with a reputed Xamarin app development company to reap its remarkable benefits.