Develop powerful cross-platform applications with Xamarin

About This Book

Write native cross-platform applications with Xamarin

Design user interfaces that can be shared across Android, iOS, and Windows Phone using Xamarin.Forms

Practical cross-platform development strategies

Who This Book Is For

If you are a developer with experience in C# and are just getting into mobile development, this is the book for you. This book will give you a head start with cross-platform development and will be the most useful to developers who have experience with desktop applications or the web.

What You Will Learn

Apple''s MVC design pattern

The Android activity lifecycle

Share C# code across platforms and call native Objective-C or Java libraries from C#

Create a real web service back end in Windows Azure using SQL Azure as database storage

Set up third-party libraries such as NuGet and Objective Sharpie in many different ways, and port a desktop .NET library to Xamarin

Use Xamarin.Mobile for camera, contacts, and location

In Detail

Xamarin is a leading cross-platform application development tool used by top companies such as Coca-Cola, Honeywell, and Alaska Airlines to build apps. Version 4 features significant updates to the platform including the release of Xamarin.Forms 2.0 and improvements have been made to the iOS and Android designers. Xamarin was acquired by Microsoft so it is now a part of the Visual Studio family.

This book will show you how to build applications for iOS, Android, and Windows. You will be walked through the process of creating an application that comes complete with a back-end web service and native features such as GPS location, camera, push notifications, and other core features. Additionally, you''ll learn how to use external libraries with Xamarin and Xamarin.Forms to create user interfaces. This book also provides instructions for Visual Studio and Windows.

This edition has been updated with new screenshots and detailed steps to provide you with a holistic overview of the new features in Xamarin 4.

Style and approach

This book offers a tutorial style approach to teach you the skills required to develop end-to-end cross-platform solutions with Xamarin.