These days, as an entrepreneur, you may face a dilemma about selecting a right approach from the native and cross-platform environment for developing your enterprise-grade customized mobile application. It is indeed a crucial decision in the ever-changing business world where the ‘mobile-first’ approach is prevalent.
On the one hand, you may not want to miss the flawless performance and pleasant user experience of native apps, and on the other hand, it is not advisable to avoid cross-platform apps that can run on multiple OS and devices. You need to consider development costs, targeted audience, and many other important business aspects while opting for an either route.
When should you opt for native apps?
If you want to take advantage of any device-specific features or any specific interactions with a particular device, you should go with native apps. Also, native platforms are for you if you want to create separate apps for different platforms without offering common features.
Why should you go for Xamarin apps?
But, looking at the current scenario where business requirements change at a fast pace and competition intensifies every day, it is better to opt for cross-platform mobile apps. Here are the reasons why you should go for a cross-platform app.
Today, Xamarin is the developer’s choice from all the cross-platform app development frameworks available as it can readily compile to the native code and use native APIs to display the entire app UI. In other words, a well-developed Xamarin app can take advantage of every platform’s standard interface paradigm and other features.
Let’s find out how Xamarin has the upper hand over native applications:
How is Xamarin better than Native?
- Code-sharing aspect is the biggest advantage of Xamarin over native, and perhaps, the prime reason for selecting it by the developers. Whenever portability issues arise, developers can readily share the code between iOS and Android OS. From networking to view models, and from business logic to navigation logic- everything can be shared between all versions of your Xamarin app. Xamarin forms enable developers to increase the shareable code up to 90 percent.
- Another Xamarin advantage over native is the ability to use C# as the development language for all the platforms. C# has evolved in the recent years to allow very fast app development while offering higher safety. Also, newer patterns including LINQ, implicit typing, async methods, etc. help developers to come up with more readable and reliable code in C#.
- Xamarin has upped the support of PCLs (Portable Class Libraries) and a few relicensed libraries of Microsoft for implementing complex tasks in an effortless manner. Unless native apps, the developers need to write the code and libraries once, and it can be readily shared across Xamarin iOS, Windows, and Xamarin Android. Xamarin allows developers to use popular PCLs like Json.NET, SQLite, and ReactiveUI for every platform. Developers can develop a ‘build once, run everywhere’ app through using these libraries.
Other Xamarin benefits
Xamarin is free with Visual Studio.
Xamarin applications have access to platform-centric capabilities like iBeacons for iOS and Fragments for Android.
Xamarin is particularly useful for enterprises because it offers efficient solutions to internal development teams for meeting complex business objectives.
Xamarin Insights facilitates app owners to track real-time and after-crash stats from the app. It enables app owners to see real-time user sessions and errors affecting particular users.
Other useful benefits of Xamarin for the developers are mentioned here.
Wrapping up
When it comes to business, Xamarin can save your money and time in the development process, and you need not hire separate developers for each platform. Xamarin automated test tools assist you in rolling out enterprise mobile apps with minimal bugs. Furthermore, you cannot find a significant difference between a well-written Xamarin app and its native counterparts.
To sum up, just remember to tailor your mobile strategy considering the customer requirements and your business model. Xamarin platform would be your smart choice for addressing a huge smartphone-using audience across the world.
