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Why choose Xamarin?

pauloortins.com

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Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#51

Post by McGnarlySheen »

AUmrysh wrote: post #9
atwebb wrote: post #3

I realize that the difference of $700 could be made up in improved development performance but I really, really wish they'd allow VS support for the indie license. It's not a case of saving more it's a risk/reward thing for me. I can see the possible value but, without being able to pick it up quickly in an environment I know I can't justify either spending an extra $700 or picking up another IDE/workspace along with…

It's clear to me that Xamarin is trying to get everyone to pay right now. The free license won't even allow you to build the Xamarin.Forms demo, and Forms is one of the most significant new features they added. Cross platform apps with a common UI and codebase, no more separate views for each platform, and data binding! I think they're scaring off small developers by requiring the several hundred dollar investment to…

Every benefit you just mentioned PhoneGap/Cordova has... and it's free...

Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#52

Post by romanovic »

Someone mentioned Titanium earlier. Titanium shares the major advantages Paulo points out in his case for Xamarin (i.e. single language, cross-platform, native apps, access to native APIS). But Titanium also has a couple clear advantages over Xamarin:

  - Titanium is FOSS - Xamarin's cost is merely very inconvenient; its closedness is much more repulsive
  - Titanium doesn't sideline those of us who develop on linux (a linux-based OS rules the mobile market, after all)
On the other hand, C# is a beautiful, evolved language that I would love to try out with mobile development, and I can appreciate a shiny IDE. However, as long as the above conditions apply, I'll always consider open and developer-friendly solutions like Titanium first before resorting to Xamarin.

Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#54

Post by pan69 »

fidotron wrote: post #16

The killer problem with Xamarin is to use it effectively you have to be expert in both Xamarin and the native platform you're targeting. This is because most of the work of mobile apps ends up being tied to the UI, which has a platform specific API. If your app happens to deviate from this, then at least for Android once more you're in platform specific land (for example, services), but I've seen people doing things…

The power of Xamarin is obviously that you have a single language (C#) even if you have a "fat" UI's that are platform specific. Having a single language means that you can have your business logic as a single code base rather than it in two or more languages with all the consequences of code base specific bugs.

But I do agree with you, Xamarin is not a build once run anywhere kind of solution. If you want to build Android app with it you still need to be very familiar with all the ins and outs of Android, same for iOS.

Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#55

Post by sochinochi »

atwebb wrote: post #44
keithwarren wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being honest, there will be very little learning curve going from VS to Xamarin Studio. They tried to make that switch as painless as possible. You are right, there is a factor of learning that needs to be baked into your consideration but there comes a point where you put a little trust in people who came before you and tell you 'I have done this, I have been where you are - follow me and you will be fine'. On the f…

Great, now I feel like my reply was way too snarky. I'll give the XS IDE a try and I want to be clear to any Xamarin/dev folks reading here, I in no way think all this stuff should be free. I just see that as a limiting barrier and, judging by the comments here and elsewhere, so do others. I appreciate your reply and insight, thanks!

We recently introduced pricing for SMBs and Start Ups. You can shoot an email to hello@xamarin.com if interested.

Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#57

Post by [deleted] »

exhilaration wrote: post #11
pauloortins wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried Xamarin Studio? It's not as good as Visual Studio but it's a very decent IDE. I'm currently using it instead Visual Studio.

Is it significantly different from Visual Studio? How easily could a VS user transition to it? I think I'd be willing to drop $300 of my own money if I could put my many years of C# experience to work developing iOS and Android apps.

[deleted]

Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#58

Post by RayDonnelly »

general_failure wrote: post #31
zura wrote: post #7

Why not choose C++/Qt/QML?

AFAIK, QML has barely any native UI integration. Are there iOS and Android components? Why does nothing turn up when doing a simple google search?

This email just in today:

http://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/android-development/20...

It's native look and feel though, and not native integration. However AFAIK it goes to great lengths to blend in with the actual device you're running it on.

Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#59

Post by EShy »

jaegerpicker wrote: post #43
keithwarren wrote: post #22

It amazes me that the constant complaint on here is the price. Seriously folks, if you are a professional developer (by that I mean your primary ability to earn money for you and your family is the development of software) then the cost of a Xamarin license should be looked at as a factor of time. How much time will it save you? Lets imagine your current project to build an iOS and Android app of identical functional…

I think you are missing the point here so I'll layout the three reasons price is a big deal to some (I'm basing my arguments on the ($1000 per platform price because that is the first place I think it's really worth while): 1. If I'm bootstrapping a startup, That $2000 is easily at least 1 entire year of web hosting, or a new MacBook, or a couple of new servers. Bootstrapping has thin enough margains that $2000 is a…

I think the only important difference between the $300 and $1000 licences is the Visual Studio add-in and while I prefer VS to Xamarin Studio, I would assume the starving devs at a start-up will be fine with it.

The only way your math makes sense to me is if a start-up only plans on releasing for one platform at first. If you're going to build an iOS app first and only move on to Android if that iOS app is successful than it probably doesn't make sense to use Xamarin.

If you're planning on doing both iOS and Android at the same time (and maybe Windows Phone as well), the added developer hours (same dev or an additional dev) to build the same project in another language instead of sharing 50% of the code and just building another UI would probably cost you more.

I never heard anyone for Xamarin selling it as a game dev solution. IIRC Unity is actually running on the same Mono engine from Xamarin (it's an open source project, but I think they're running it). Last time I checked some of those other solutions had expensive licenses too.

Xamarin is still too new to see lots of job postings looking for that skill. I also think that in the near future companies using Xamarin will use it for LOB apps. That's a big market for .Net developers building desktop software or internal web sites. A transition to Xamarin might makes sense for both these companies and these developers.

The bottom line, products are targeted at specific customers. Xamarin could have decided to go after the start-ups, but since most start-ups are content with releasing an app on a single platform first, the proposition of getting additional platforms with less work isn't that enticing. It's much easier to sell the product to an enterprise as their cost for multiple teams with different skills would be a lot higher than the Xamarin license.

Re: Why choose Xamarin?

#60

Post by EShy »

rational-future wrote: post #34

The big question IMHO is will Microsoft buy Xamarin or not. If they do the price will certainly fall drastically. On one hand it will give MS way more apps on their app store. On the other if Xamarin becomes very popular Apple may block Xamarin built apps from it's app store.

Apple tried blocking certain platforms in the past, at that time Xamarin wasn't included since they are following the guidelines set in Apple's developer terms of use. Apple changed their mind very quickly about that decision too.

Xamarin still requires a mac. Your code is still compiled using LLVM (or whatever engine Apple will introduce later). The resulting app that is uploaded to Apple looks just like an app that was built using XCode.

It will be interesting to compare a simple app and see the difference in the resulting package between Xamarin and XCode

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