5 Reasons To Switch to Xamarin For Native & Cross-Platform App Development

There was a time when a mobile app was developed differently for both platforms – iOS and Android. It was the most hectic time for developers since it requires to build code, time for development, and maintenance. 

However, there were no options for developers to opt for and hence they have to update two different codes for the same app. It was not an ideal solution. Then comes the concept of Native Mobile App Development and Cross-Platform Development.

They are the most debatable topic that the tech community is taking dibs on. Many believe that both platforms are in a constant evolution state that changes the difference over time in some aspects.

The fact is that both native and cross-platform app development are dynamic which affects the app users, app owners, and app developers equally. Now developers prefer the technologies that are beneficial for them and on which they can work comfortably. 
Before answering the question – “Is Xamarin the only good choice for cross-platform development”, let’s understand the difference between cross-platform and native development.

Now, this is out of the way, let us move forward to “Why Xamarin Is Better Cross-Platform Mobile Development or Native Platform Development”. 

5 Reasons To Opt For Xamarin For Mobile App Development 

Many people put up the question “Why do companies depend upon Xamarin for native app development” or “Why do Enterprises Choose Xamarin for Cross-Platform Development”. Several reasons make Xamarin a great addition to the business world. Let us take you through different aspects of Xamarin for mobile app development that makes it a great platform to deal with.

1. Convenient and Simple
2. Performance
3. Support
4. Security
5. Availability

Let us go through this in detail.

Convenient and Simple

One of the major reasons for using Xamarin for mobile app development is its convenient and simple nature. This timeline of mobile app development for both platforms is shorter as compared to others. 

The platform offers a better user experience with standardized UI controls. This limits the requirement of focusing on extra plugins just to get more UI control options for the development process.

Xamarin also works on the integrated SDK that helps in adding new features. As soon as the changes are made in the operating system, the auto-update will be sent out to the platform for an easy installation process. This is why Xamarin is one of the best choices for writing mobile apps.

The .NET and C# framework used in Xamarin are reliable and proven factors for the app development environment. There is no need to move to different platforms such as Swift, Objective-C, and Java for adding anything since it can be done easily with Xamarin and C#.

Integrate the native open-source libraries for Android and iOS to get ideal results as in-house and open-source code in projects. Some codes can be reused such as Xamarin. Android and Xamarin.iOS. 

Performance of Xamarin for Native

Two major approaches for Xamarin have made it an ideal platform to work on. This includes Separate UI and Shared UI. In the shared UI, several platforms share the code to work smoothly.

Whereas separate UI is different than Shared UI due to its sharing of business logic only. The user interface is different for the development of the mobile app. No matter what, both approaches are used for mobile app development. 

With the help of Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android code, Xamarin can give a similar experience to the cross-platform as a native app while sharing the business logic. This includes platform-oriented hardware acceleration and UI controls to enhance native-like user experience.

Xamarin for cross-platform over native applications might be popular but it can be used for native apps as well. The platform is widely used for the development of forms for Xamarin. Forms approach that is specific to the platform.

In addition to this, the Xamarin.Forms are also used with the reusable source code to easily share the code over cross-platform instead of a single platform. Bugs are extremely common in
Development phase but with Xamarin the possibility of bugs is minimal which makes it an ideal platform to focus upon. This can be easily considered as the future of Xamarin forms.

Support

Xamarin is a platform that works with fewer bugs making the development process easier to handle. The developers can use Xamarin TestCloud to test the app for CI, fragmentation, and UI testing. 

Xamarin insights are also used to test the app’s health easily while monitoring the module in real-time. In addition to this, it is easy to integrate Azure Cloud with Xamarin to have a robust environment for app development and create rich mobile apps. It is easy to build native apps with Xamarin if used correctly.

Here is how the shared code used to work in the traditional approach:

However, now the approach is much more advanced with Shared UI as shown below:

There are several benefits offered by adding Azure Cloud with Xamarin such as on-demand resources, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and high-availability to offer high support to the app.

Security

Xamarin is a great platform to use when it comes to Azure Cloud for data security of the app. The app will run in secure environments due to the involvement of cloud encryption of hosted components. While building cross-platform apps with Xamarin or even native, it is vital to maintain the app’s data security. 

This secure connection can help in working smoothly for the backend Azure and app while establishing a hitch-less connection. However, this connection can be easily established with the help of 24-hour threat (malware) management protection and HTTP certificates. 

The motive is to leverage the services that are offered by Azure Cloud to integrate the backend with social media logins. 

Availability

The key differentiator for any app is the usability of it in offline mode. Microsoft Azure ecosystem is backing up Xamarin which makes it reliable to work upon. In addition to this, cloud-based data synchronization can help a user to access the app in offline mode with no internet connection.

This is the main reason mobile app developers prefer developing cross-platform mobile apps using Xamarin. In addition to this, as mentioned above, it is also easy to integrate Xamarin with Azure making it easy to work on network connectivity without any hindrance.

The app can easily eliminate performance lags and enhance continuous app performance that automatically leads to the success of the app.

Bonus Scalability

“Does Xamarin create native apps” is usually the most common question that is asked when it comes to mobile app development. The fact is that Xamarin is used to develop Cross-Platform Native Mobile App Development apps. Being a Microsoft-driven product, Xamarin is used in the Visual Studio environment to build, develop, or debug apps.

It includes a simulator and code editing environment to develop an app. In addition to this, the VS APP Center can be a great help to app developers for the cloud testing of an app. The test cases offer different flexibility mode that helps in testing the offline availability of app features before launching it in the market. 

Xamarin is the future of the app development industry depending upon specific APIs and the latest SDKs to work on a platform. This binds the APIs and SDKs over multiple platforms with the motive to offer new features to support and develop high-quality applications. This is because it is added up to the operating system.

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