People have realized that mobile applications are no longer a choice but a necessity. However, It is quite a challenge to decide on native vs. cross-platform apps. Both of them have their own advantages and limitations, choosing the best option is always challenging. Many companies settle with cross-platform app development as it provides the opportunity to deliver the services on multiple platforms from a single codebase. Cross-platform applications save your money because you can develop multiple platforms in one go and also you don’t need resources to built individual applications. Another advantage is that apps will look uniform in all platforms and it is easy to implement. Since the code is shared between all platforms you can update apps in all the platforms by just changing source code once. There are many cross-platform development tools like Flutter, React Native, PhoneGap, Ionic etc. Now let’s go through such a cross-platform development tool: Xamarine What is Xamarin? Xamarin is a platform for developing cross-platform applications for iOS, Android and Windows. You can build apps in all major platforms with Xamarin which are indistinguishable from native apps. Xamarinhas established its potential in all types of industries like Tech, gaming, hospitality, media, manufacturing, healthcare. Some of the popular apps developed using Xamarin are: Storyo, SuperGiant Games, Olo etc. Xamarin has powerful C# environment, native and cross-platform libraries and APIs. Also, other features of Xamarin such as efficiency in terms of code sharing and scalability attract developers from all over the world. Let us explore the benefits of mobile app development using Xamarin. Provides native experience Open-source Favors rapid prototyping Provides native experience Easy and quick app testing Easy up-gradation and maintenance Based on C# Wearable support Provides native experience Having native experience while using a cross-platform application is one of the features that everyone looks at. Xamarin integrates well with the SDK of each operating system and thereby developers can access the native components of each platform. This is helpful while creating apps with greater user experience. Open-source Xamarin is a user-friendly open-source platform. Developers can now access all SDKs of the framework. Also since it is an open-source technology community support is also large Favors rapid prototyping With Xamarin you can develop codes quickly and cost-effective. Developers can share code without changing the UI of each platform. Thus you can eliminate the time that otherwise required for code rewriting, compiling, etc. Easy and quick app testing Testing the app before deployment is not an easy task when you have to test on multiple platforms. But Xamarin app testing is easy since testing happens on the cloud and allows quick testing. Easy up-gradation and maintenance Since Xamarin is using shared codes both updation and maintenance are easy. Developers can change the code in source code and update it to all platforms. This saves development costs and time. Based on C# By choosing Xamarin you can also explore the benefits of c# libraries as well. C# is known for its strong safety typing, so you can make sure that all the written code will be protected from unexpected behavior Wearable support There is an increasing demand for wearable technologies like apple watches android wears etc. Xamarin supports the development using visual studio and it has a native approach while developing for wearable devices. Xamarin is emerging as one of the powerful and leading tools for cross-platform app development. Almost 1.5 million developers around the globe are already using Xamarin. It guarantees both native and cross-platform features. This is also helping the community to get larger. Xamarin developers are continuously working on changes and improvements in code. We can expect a good number of Xamarin based mobile apps in the future.
