James Montemagno

More Cross-Platform APIs with Xamarin.Essentials Latest Preview

June 14th, 2018

We announced Xamarin.Essentials, a core set of cross-platform APIs to help developers build native apps, at Microsoft Build 2018. Xamarin.Essentials gives developers access to over thirty platform-specific APIs that can be accessed from their shared code, including geolocation, secure storage, sensors, device information, and many more. Best of all, Xamarin.Essentials can be used in any iOS, Android, UWP, or Xamarin.Forms app, regardless of how you create the user interface. Feedback on the first preview from developers has been fantastic, with praise of a simple and straightforward way to access these native features.

Xamarin.Essentials: Cross-Platform APIs for Mobile Apps

May 16th, 2018

When developing iOS and Android apps with Xamarin, developers can access every native platform API using C#. These bindings not only expose the platform APIs in C#, but add powerful C# features, such as async/await, events, delegates, and more. This is a huge advantage for developers, because they never have to leave C#, whether they're writing shared business logic, user interface, or accessing native features. One key feature developers often look for when developing cross-platform apps with Xamarin is a way to access common native features from their shared code without having to write their own abstractions or find an open source plugin created by the community.

The Xamarin Show: Getting Started with iOS Development in C#

January 18th, 2018

If you're looking to get started with iOS development, there's no better place to look than our amazing Xamarin.iOS documentation guides. They cover each and every topic that you can imagine when it comes to iOS development in C# with Xamarin. If you enjoy watching development videos on your favorite development topics, then look no further than The Xamarin Show, my weekly Xamarin developer video series on Channel 9. Each week I team up with other amazing guests to cover a topic in the world of Xamarin development. Since the launch of The Xamarin Show, we've covered a lot of great topics, from how to get started with iOS development to advanced topics such as publishing the app to the app store.

The C# Developer’s Guide to Shipping Better Apps with Visual Studio App Center

January 16th, 2018

At our annual Microsoft Connect event in November, we announced the General Availability of Visual Studio App Center, combining our best developer services, incuding Xamarin Test Cloud and HockeyApp, into one free, easy-to-use cloud service to help you ship better apps, faster. From building in the cloud to automatically testing on thousands of real devices, distributing to testers and app stores, and monitoring real-time crash and analytics data, Visual Studio App Center fully supports Xamarin apps.

Podcast: Connect(); 2017 Xamarin and App Center Recap

November 17th, 2017

In this episode of the Xamarin Podcast, I am joined by App Center program manager James White. We sit down and cover all of the amazing announcements from this years Connect(); 2017 event. Sit back, relax and get ready for tons of Xamarin goodness with Native Forms, .NET Embedding, App Center's General Availability, and so much more! Be sure to download today's episode from your favorite podcast app.

Simplified App Signing with Secure Files in Azure Devops

November 6th, 2017

Share More Code with .NET Standard 2.0

August 29th, 2017

There are several great ways to share code between applications and to create libraries to share with the world. With more and more platforms supporting C# and .NET, a new type of library, which we call .NET Standard libraries, was created to simplify development for all developers.

Fast & Simple Android Location Updates with Google Play services

August 24th, 2017

Starting an Android application that relies on device location can be overwhelming. The classic way of getting location is with Android's core APIs, which have been around for a very long time and can be confusing to use. To simplify this process, we developed the Geolocator plugin, which enables developers to get the location from shared code on iOS, Android, and Windows from a single API. There are times when you may want or need full control over the API, however, and that's where the new Google Play services location APIs come in. These APIs simplify location awareness with multiple sensors on the device to help determine the location of the user. This means that, when using these new APIs, querying for location updates is faster and more accurate and, with the most recent update (11.0.4), it's never been easier to get started.

Native Android Facebook Authentication with Azure App Service

August 18th, 2017

Authenticationis critical to applications success. Look at your app, and I bet the very first things that your users will do is sign up or log in to their account. This will probably, in turn, leverage some form of social authentication. Each social authentication provider is a little bit different, and some, such as Facebook, offer a native SDK to simplify the login process and offer additional functionality specific to their service. Previously, we looked at how to integrate the Facebook SDK for iOS to offer a native login experience and how to integrate with Azure Mobile Apps, part of Azure App Service. Today, I'll show you how to log in with the Android Facebook SDK to simplify the login process on Android and with Xamarin.Forms.

Exploring Android’s Bottom Navigation View

August 7th, 2017

The debate over whether tabs should go on the top or the bottom of a screen has raged for nearly a decade. Android has always preferred to use tabs as a filtering mechanism on the top of a page, while iOS has used bottom tabs as the main source of navigation. Now, with the addition of the Bottom Navigation View in the Support Design library, Android developers have the choice of where their main navigation comes from in their applications.