Xamarin 4.x Cross-Platform Application Development - Third Edition

Key Features

• 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

Book Description

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.

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

About the Author

Jonathan Peppers is a Xamarin MVP and lead developer on popular apps and games at Hitcents such as the Hanx Writer (for Tom Hanks) and the Draw a Stickman franchise. Jon has been working with C# for over 10 years working on a wide range of projects at Hitcents. Jon began his career working Self-Checkout software written in WinForms and later migrated to WPF. Over his career, he has worked with many .NET-centric technologies such as ASP.Net WebForms, MVC, Windows Azure, WinRT/UWP, F#, and Unity3D.

In recent years, Hitcents has been heavily investing in mobile development with Xamarin, and has development over 50 mobile applications across multiple platforms.

Table of Contents

1. Xamarin Setup
2. Hello, Platforms!
3. Code Sharing Between iOS and Android
4. XamSnap - A Cross-Platform App
5. XamSnap for iOS
6. XamSnap for Android
7. Deploying and Testing on Devices
8. Contacts, Camera, and Location
9. Web Services with Push Notifications
10. Third-Party Libraries
11. Xamarin.Forms
12. App Store Submission