6 Reasons why Xamarian is Great for Cross-Platform Development

Businesses have recognized the role of a mobile strategy in increasing user engagement with their applications. When a company thinks of going mobile they consider developing solutions compatible with a specific platform be it Android or iOS. 

While developers state that native apps perform better and improve user experience, not all companies have the resources to develop an application separately for Android and iOS platforms. Thankfully, cross-platform applications solve this issue as they function seamlessly across all devices and platforms. However, most companies are not aware of the benefits of cross-platform mobile app development.

What is Xamarin?

Over 1 million developers in nearly 120 countries worldwide have been using Xamarin for app development since its launch in 2011. 

Xamarin is a Microsoft acquired open-source framework perfect for cross-platform mobile development that allows developers to reuse 95% of the code while altering the rest based on the platform. In other words, This universal tool enables developers to create high-performing, maintainable and user-friendly applications using a singular codebase in very less time.

Here are 6 Reasons why Xamarian is Great for Cross-Platform Development:

• Provides User-Experience Similar to Native Apps: Many developers prefer a native design for any mobile application development project because it provides a better user experience. Xamarin gives a native feel and look to a cross-platform application. It provides native UI, performance, and API utilized by apps specifically developed for Android, iOS, or Windows phones. This nativeness is only possible because Xamarin uses platform-specific elements. For instance, Xamarin.iOS, and Xamarin. Android provides developers access to the complete iOS and Android SDKs and Xamarin.Forms give a UI toolkit for all mobile app platforms.

Xamarin has Xamarin Studio and Visual Studio UI design environments that activate specialized UI and UX software. This helps developers to build a superior native-like User Experience. These features of Xamarin allows you to shorten the app development lifecycle to a great extent.

• Rapid Mobile App Development: More and more developers are leaning towards Xamarin for Cross-platform development because it allows for Rapid Mobile App Development. When compared with native app development, using Xamarin seems to be reducing costs and development time significantly. Xamarin can help businesses keep up with the growing demand for digital solutions and stay ahead of the competitive app market.

• Easy to Learn and Maintain: Developing native apps can be taxing as Android and iOS app development requires the developer to learn separate programming languages Java and Object-C respectively. In other words, you will need to learn two completely different ways of developing the same application. Xamarian solves this issue as it only requires you to learn one language that is, C#. You can easily develop a cross-platform application for different platforms using the same programming language.

Since you are not developing different apps using Xamarian, maintaining and updating a single application becomes an added advantage. By using Xamarin.Forms you can apply any modifications or changes you made to the source codebase to all the applications. This feature is great especially when you have a smaller development team working on developing applications for all mobile platforms. Even a small team will be able to troubleshoot any app performance issues before the app is launched. Therefore, apps developed using Xamarian are easy to maintain and stay up to date.

• Offers a Huge Selection of Tools: From a rich editor to debugging tools, Xamarian offers a wide selection of tools for developers. Xamarin.Essential is a valuable table that helps developers add the necessary features to applications. This tool is a library that converts Native APIs into Cross-Platform APIs so that developers can add over 30 features using single APIs. Connectivity, device information, version tracking, geolocation, and secure storage are some popular APIs offered by Xamarin. This platform combines C# along with .NET., which means that it is supported by Microsoft and can also be used within a Visual Studio environment. 

• Simplifies Testing: Testing plays an important role in any app or software development process. The main purpose of testing a cross-platform application is to ensure that it is of high-quality, is bug-free, and performs well on all platforms. Since programmers using Xamarian only need to write a single codebase, they will find very few bugs in the application. With Xamarian the QA team does not need to write separate tests for each individual platform and can get away with preparing a single set of tests.

Xamarian Test Cloud is a platform that can be used by software testers to test apps on different types of real devices via the cloud. With fewer efforts, testers can ensure that the app is performing well and consistently across various devices.

• Large Community and Support: Businesses globally trust and use Xamarian to build high-performing cross-platform apps. Xamarin Insights provides developers and entrepreneurs real-time information on how their app is running and/or appearing on their user’s devices. It can analyze app performance and help developers modify the user experience on the go. Xamarin is also supported by Microsoft, one of the leading software companies in the world. Microsoft provides a wide arena of self-paced Xamarin courses on the Microsoft Learn Platform, that can help developers improve their skills.

In addition to the support provided by the platform, there are various support pages, groups, and forums of developers who can help you understand Xamarian better. If you have any questions regarding Xamarin you can easily find answers by reaching out to other developers on support forums.

Xamarin is undoubtedly a great platform for developing hybrid or cross-platform apps and allows you to scale-up your app development without having to spend a lot of time. In today’s world, it has become important to make your application available on all platforms to reach your audience and Xamarin helps you develop apps that can operate on all platforms with minimal costs and efforts. However, it is important to note that this tool is not a “one fits all” solution and is entirely dependent on your business requirements. If your company is considering app development for the first time, consider outsourcing development to a reputed app development company.