Sydney Mobile .Net Developers

Cross Platform Native App DevelopmentiOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8

Alec TuckerHead of Mobile Product Development, APAC

White Clarke Group

Inaugural Meetup

• Introductions• Focus on Mobile, .Net, Xamarin• Planned format• Group Details• http://xamarin.meetup.com/ • http://www.meetup.com/SydneyMobileDotNetDevelopers/

• Current sponsors…

Leaders in Finance Technology

(also pretty good at supplying venue and pizza!!)

• Sign up at xamarin.com/university• Learn to build native iOS, Android, and Windows

apps with C# in just 30 days.• Live online, interactive classes with live coding.• Labs with full source code solutions.• Nearly 600 pages of curriculum documentation.• Access to Xamarin Certified Developer exam.• First March session is filling up fast.

• Vaughn Knight, Nokia Australia

Nokia & Microsoft

The Plan

• Approaches to Cross Platform Mobile Dev• WORA / WOOE

• Cross Platform AND Native• Code Sharing Approaches• File Linking• Portable Class Libraries

• MVVM Pattern Suitability• Using MVVM in iOS and Android Apps

Android Fragmentation

July 2012 – 3,997 distinct devices July 2013 – 11,868 distinct devices

Source: http://opensignal.com/reports/fragmentation-2013/

Android Fragmentation

Source: http://opensignal.com/reports/fragmentation-2013/

OS Versions Out There (iOS & Android)

Source: http://opensignal.com/reports/fragmentation-2013/

Screen Sizes (iOS and Android)

Android – Distinct Screen SizesiOS – Distinct Screen Sizes

Source: http://opensignal.com/reports/fragmentation-2013/

Approaches

• App dev – multiple platforms• Mobile Web Hybrid Native• Historically native has been overlooked as it’s assumed to mean

developing separately for each platform• Cross platform AND native…

Cross Platform AND Native

XamarinWrite one shared C# codebase, and separate platform-specific user interfaces also in C#. The result is native apps that share business logic, data access, networking code and more.

CompilationXamarin.iOS does ahead-of-time compilation to produce ARM binaries for Apple’s App Store.Xamarin.Android uses just-in-time compilation.In both cases the app is native. Not cross compiled. Not interpreted. Native.

Code Sharing Approaches

• File linking• Quick demo

• Pros• Shared code can be put within precompiler directives to control which

bits are compiled for which platforms• Can be used to implement platform specific code / features

• Cons• Can seem like a good idea, but you can quickly come unstuck and end

up with unmaintainable code…

(shamelessly pinched from James Montemagno’s presentation at the Seattle Mobile .Net Developers meetup)

Code Sharing Approaches

• Portable Class Library (PCL)• Quick demo

MVVM Pattern

ViewsUI – how to display information

View ModelsWhat information to displayFlow of interaction

ModelsData entities

Platformspecific

Portable

Data Binding

Reference

MvvmCross

• Best illustrated with a demo

Questions / Discussion / Pizza

Contact Details / References

Group

http://www.meetup.com/SydneyMobileDotNetDevelopers/

Xamarin

www.xamarin.com

MvvmCross

Slodge.blogspot.co.uk

Mvvm Background

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/kashiffl/archive/2010/11/14/mvvm-technical-description.aspx

UX Design Guidelines

Applehttps://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/userexperience/conceptual/mobilehig/

Androidhttps://developer.android.com/design/index.html

Windows Phonehttp://dev.windowsphone.com/en-us/design/principles

Further Contacts

Vaughan Knight – Nokia @vaughanknight vaughan.knight@nokia.com

Dave Glover – Microsoft dglover@microsoft.com

Andrew Coates – Microsoft andrew.coates@Microsoft.com

Alec Tucker atucker@whiteclarkegroup.com @alecdtucker