What is Xamarin? - Part I

Xamarin is one of the best cross-platform development tool that allows us to create apps in C# for Android, iOS, Windows and Mac. Xamarin is best known as the company behind Mono.

Xamarin is the company sponsoring mono development and support. Commercial products based on mono are Xamarin.iOS(MonoTouch) and Xamarin.Android(MonoAndroid) for developing cross platform mobile applications.

"Xamarin was founded with a mission to delight developers with the world's best platform for mobile development" said Nat Friedman, Xamarin founder and CEO.

What is Mono?

Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft's .NET Framework based on the ECMA standards for C# and the Common Language Runtime.

Mono runs on multiple platforms - Linux, OS X, BSD, iPhone, Android, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows, including x86, x86-64, ARM, s390, PowerPC, SPARC, IA64, MIPS and much more

How did Xamarin got its name?

Just as mono means monkey in spanish,  Xamarin derives its name from a Spanish term for Tamarin species.

What is Xamarin ?

Xamarin enables developers to reach all major mobile platforms

• Native User Interface
• Native Performance
• Shared Code Across Platforms
• C# & .NET Framework

Why Xamarin?

- Xamarin provides full access to the Native platform APIs from C#.

- Xamarin compiler outputs native executable and packaged as iOS or Android app.  As a result the performance of the applications built by the Xamarin Mono is very high.

- Native compilation gives users brilliant app performance for even the most demanding scenarios, like high frame rate gaming and complex data visualizations.

- Write Everything in C#

- Over a Decade of Enterprise Production Use

- Xamarin offers 100% API coverage on iOS and Android

- Take advantage of everything great about C# and now write code that can be shared across all platforms

• iOS
• Android,
• Mac
• Windows (WPF, Store, Phone, ASP.NET, etc)

"With Xamarin, developers combine all of the productivity benefits of C#, Visual Studio 2013 and Windows Azure with the flexibility to quickly build for multiple device targets." said S. Somasegar, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft.

Xamarin History

Checkout Part II