Cross Platform Mobile Development with Xamarin

Joe Koletar – Mobile Solution Lead

Cross Platform Mobile Development with XamarinC# on iOS and Android

Minnesota Enterprise Mobile November 2013

2 RBA

Technical services across the full Microsoft stack

Microsoft National Systems Integrator

Gold Certified Microsoft Partner 7 Gold Competencies6 Silver Competencies

Named Best Places to Work in the Twin Cities 5 times

Joe KoletarMobile Solution [email protected]


3 Agenda

Mobile Space

Cross Platform Tools

Xamarin Background

Xamarin Android Demo

Xamarin iOS Demo


4 User Expectations

The Mobile Challenge

Consumers now have an expectation that any desired information or service is available, on any appropriate device at your moment of need

Forrester Research, The Mobile Mind Shift


Comscore, Top Smartphone platforms, ending April 2013

5 Mobile OS Market Share

3%Windows

39%iOS

5%Blackberry

52%Android

Market share fracture and ongoing shift means there is no obvious,

single choice.

Comscore, Top Smartphone platforms, ending April 2013


6 Mobile Wish List

Support multiple platforms - BYOD

Provide a rich, native experience

Get to market quickly

Have an easily maintained code base

Support future flexibility

Do it at a reasonable cost


7 Mobile Objective

How to develop applications to reach the broadest range of users in the most effective manner for the least cost


8 Understanding the Trade-OffsPerformance and familiarity increase the closer to platform specific your app gets but so does cost and complexity.

UI Familiarity

Performance

Mobile Web

Native Wrapper

Interpreted Cross Compile

d

Platform Specific

Value for Cost

Cross-Platform Options

Value


9 Mobile Web

Web site with a mobile customized UI• Detect user device and customize display to

device form factor

• Responsive Design


10 Mobile Web

Users access the site from device browser

Business/Data Code

iOS

Web Browser

Android

Web Browser

Windows Phone

Web Browser

HTML 5/CSS/JavaScript


11 Mobile Web

Maintainability

Performance

User Experience

Offline Capability

Sensors

Toolset Choices

Cost


12 Platform Specific

Native application is written for each platform using platform specific IDE


13 Platform SpecificNative application is written for each platform

iOS

Native App

Android

Native App

Windows Phone

Native App

Java C#Objective C


14 Platform Specific

Maintainability

Performance

User Experience

Offline Capability

Sensors

Toolset Choices

Cost


15 Native Wrapper

Web App is wrapped in device specific code to run as a Native App

Web app is hosted in a chromeless browser window.


16 Native WrapperWeb app is wrapped in device specific codeAccess to sensors is achieved through bridge

iOS Android Windows Phone

Web View

Bridge

Native API

Web View

Bridge

Native API

Web View

Bridge

Native API

HTML 5/CSS/JavaScript


17 Native Wrapper

Maintainability

Performance

User Experience

Offline Capability

Sensors

Toolset Choices

Cost


18 Interpreted

Interpreted applications map a common language to platform specific APIs

−Abstraction layer is provided on top of the native API

−Code is written to run on the abstraction layer


19 InterpretedApplication is written in scripting language

Script proxies provide access to native widgets

iOS

Script

Interpreter

Native API

Android

Script

Interpreter

Native API

Windows Phone

Script

Interpreter

Native API

Script


20 Interpreted

Maintainability

Performance

User Experience

Offline Capability

Sensors

Toolset Choices

Cost


21 Cross Compiled

Cross compiled applications map a common language to platform specific SDK


22 Cross Compiled

Common business logic is combined with platform specific UI code into native app

iOS

Native App

Android

Native App

Windows Phone

Native App

C# Android UI C# Win Phone UIC# iOS UI

C# Business/Data Code


23 Cross Compiled

Maintainability

Performance

User Experience

Offline Capability

Sensors

Toolset Choices

Cost


24 Xamarin – What do you get

Allows programming C# to iOS and Android

Access to .NET Base Libraries

Full featured C# 5.0 support includes:

−LINQ

−Generics

−Task Parallel Library

−Lambdas

−Async


25 Xamarin – How does it work

Evolved from Mono project

−Open source version of the .NET Runtime

−Ported to various platforms

C# bindings for nearly the entire underlying platform SDKs

−UI code is platform specific

−Supports native User Experience

−Also imposes a learning curve


26 Xamarin – How does it work

Xamarin.iOS does full Ahead Of Time (AOT) compilation to produce an ARM binary suitable for Apple’s App Store.

Xamarin.Android takes advantage of Just In Time (JIT) compilation on the Android device


27 Xamarin – Demo

Android

• Hello, World

• Tasky Pro

iOS

• Hello, World

• Field Service App


28 Tasky Pro Architecture

Shared Code

Data Layer

TaskDatabase

SQLLite

Data Access Layer

TaskRepository

Business Layer

TaskManager

Task

System, System.Core, System.Xml

iOS App

Application Layer

UI Layer

Xamarin.iOS assemblies

Android App

Application Layer

UI Layer

Xamarin.Android assemblies


29 Xamarin – Licenses

Licenses are per developer, per platform, per year

• Starter – Free, Limited App Size

• Indie - $299, Xamarin Studio Only

• Business - $999, Visual Studio, Email Support

• Enterprise- $1899, 1 day SLA


30 Links

Xamarin Store

https://store.xamarin.com/

Xamarin Tutorials and Help

http://docs.xamarin.com/

http://forums.xamarin.com/

YouTube Xamarin Channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/xamarinhq



http://docs.xamarin.com/



http://www.youtube.com/user/xamarinhq


31 More Links

Tasky Pro Source Code

https://github.com/xamarin/mobile-samples/tree/master/TaskyPro

Tasky Pro Case Study

http://docs.xamarin.com/Android/Guides/Application_Fundamentals/Building_Cross_Platform_Applications/Case_Study%3A_Tasky

Field Service App

http://xamarin.com/prebuilt/fieldservice



http://xamarin.com/prebuilt/fieldservice


32 Thanks!

Download Slides

http://tinyurl.com/MnEMOctober2013

Technology

Cross Platform Mobile Development with Xamarin