Building Cross-Platform iOS/Android Apps with Xamarin, Visual Studio, and C# - Part 1
by Jim Wilson
Learn how to use Xamarin to leverage your skills in Microsoft Visual Studio and C# to build cross-platform apps that run on both Android and iOS.
What you'll learn
Learn how to use Xamarin to leverage your skills in Microsoft Visual Studio and C# to build cross-platform apps that run on both Android and iOS. In the first part of this course series, we show you everything you need to get started using Xamarin's integration with Visual Studio to create cross-platform C# apps. We provide detailed coverage of Xamarin along with other tools you need, their setup, architecture, and the basics of their use. We introduce the basics of creating an Android and an iOS application, creating a simple user interface, and how to test and deploy the application to emulators, simulators, and real devices all using Xamarin's cross-platform developer tools. Finally, we introduce .NETs Portable Class Library and show how to create a single class library that runs across both Android and iOS devices.
About the author
Jim Wilson is president of JW Hedgehog, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in solutions for the Android, iOS, and Microsoft platforms. Jim has over 30 years of software engineering experience, with the past 15 years heavily focused on creating mobile device and location-based solutions. He has co-founded multiple software-related startups and has served in a consulting role at several more. After nearly a decade as a Microsoft Device Application Development MVP, Jim now focuses on developing A... morendroid and iOS device applications.
Jim's passion is mentoring software developers. He enjoys the native development experience of Java on Android and Objective-C on iOS just as much as the cross-platform experience of .NET-based device development with Xamarin. Jim has authored more than 30 articles on device application development and has served as a contributing expert on mobile software development issues to a variety of media outlets. Jim’s latest book is Creating Dynamic UI with Android Fragments.
Jim and his wife, along with several cats, split their time between Celebration, Florida (just 3 miles from Walt Disney World) and Weirs Beach, New Hampshire. Check out Jim's blog where he talks about a variety of mobile software development issues as well as the fun of a life split between the busy region of the "House of Mouse" and the quiet of NH’s lakes & mountains.