Xamarin has built three core products for developing iOS and Android applications in C#: Xamarin Studio, Xamarin.iOS, and Xamarin.Android. Xamarin gives you direct access to the native APIs on each platform and the flexibility to share C# code among platforms. Using Xamarin and C#, the productivity you get is better than that of Java or Objective-C while maintaining a greater performance output compared to a HTML or JavaScript solution.
In this book, we will develop a real-world sample application to demonstrate what you can do with Xamarin technologies, and build on core platform concepts for iOS and Android. We will also cover advanced topics such as push notifications, retrieving contacts, using a camera, and GPS location. Finally, we will walk through what it takes to submit your application to the Apple App Store and Google Play.
Chapter 1, Xamarin Setup, covers the process of installing the appropriate Xamarin software and native SDKs required for performing cross-platform development.
Chapter 2, Hello Platforms!, covers creating your first "Hello World" application on iOS and Android, which covers some basic concepts on each platform.
Chapter 3, Code Sharing Between iOS and Android, introduces code-sharing techniques and strategies to set up projects that can be used with Xamarin.
Chapter 4, XamChat – a Cross-platform App, introduces a sample application that we will be building throughout the book. In this chapter, we will write all the shared code for the application, complete with unit tests.
Chapter 5, XamChat for iOS, covers the technique of implementing the iOS user interface for XamChat and various iOS development concepts.
Chapter 6, XamChat for Android, covers the technique of implementing the Android version of XamChat and introduces Android-specific development concepts.
Chapter 7, Deploying and Testing on Devices, explains the painful process of deploying your first application on a device. We also cover why it is important to always test your application on real devices.
Chapter 8, Web Services with Push Notifications, explains the technique of implementing a real backend web service for XamChat using Azure Mobile Services.
Chapter 9, Third-party Libraries, covers the various options to use third-party libraries with Xamarin and how you can even leverage native Java and Objective-C libraries.
Chapter 10, Contacts, Camera, and Location, introduces the library Xamarin.Mobile as a cross-platform library for accessing users' contacts, camera, and GPS location.
Chapter 11, App Store Submission, explains the process of submitting your app to the Apple App Store and Google Play.