What is the difference between the versions of Xamarin?

Asked

Viewed 766 times

2

What is the difference between versions Xamarin.Forms, Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android?

terminology xamarin xamarin.android xamarin-forms xamarin.ios

2 answers

4


Obviously Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android are implementations of Xamarin for these specific platforms and access 100% of the platform’s API (at least it always tries to be around this). Obviously with some adaptation to conform to the philosophy of C#, but access the direct API. Note that the difference is basically in the UI and specific access to functionalities, but a good part of the code can be used. Programming with them is almost like programming with Java or Swift, but it’s C#.

Xamarin.Forms is an abstraction that allows you to leverage close to 100% of your code, including UI leveraged for both platforms. It is a layer that adopts a strategy that works well on one platform and reasonable and another. It saves hours of development and maintenance, learning from different platforms, and avoids code duplication, but lacks the best UX possible. It allows use with Windows Phone and Desktop (Windows 10) too.

2

Xamarin.Forms is a cross-platform framework (Android, iOS, Windows, and Windows Phone) for creating applications with XAML or C#, which unifies the writing of user interfaces for each platform.

Therefore, when I build an application on the Xamarin platform, using the Xamarin.Forms framework, I will have the possibility to share my "core" code and my user interfaces, be it Windows, Android, iOS, etc.

The Xamarin Platform delivers two alternatives for building mobile applications, Xamarin.iOS (permite desenvolvimento de aplicações para iOS usando controles de interface desenvolvidos com Objective-C/Xcode) and Xamarin.Android (permite desenvolvimento de aplicações para Android usando controles de interface desenvolvidos com Java), where you have direct access to the API’s of each platform while Xamarin.Forms focuses on maximizing sharing (Portable Libraries) code between these platforms.

Example: The implementation of a button is different between platforms, when I decide to use Xamarin.Forms it unifies the behavior, resolves and presents this button on each platform respecting its characteristics.

Xamarin.iOS and/or Xamarin.Android is commonly used in scenarios where:

  • Applications require specialized interactions;
  • Apps where custom UI is more important than code sharing.

Xamarin.Forms is normally used when:

  • The app requires few specific features for each platform;
  • Apps where cross-platform code sharing is more important than the custom user interface.

Browser other questions tagged terminology xamarin xamarin.android xamarin-forms xamarin.ios

You are not signed in. Login or sign up in order to post.