Integrations Archives | Page 2 of 3

Using Object Detection from inside your Xamarin app

Jim BennettSeptember 6, 2018Sep 6, 201809/6/18

Microsoft Cognitive Services provide a great way to get started with AI without being a machine learning or data science expert. A common favorite of cognitive services is the Custom Vision Service. The first version of this service allowed you to easily build an image classifier model that you could access either via a REST API (with an SDK available for Xamarin apps), or by downloading a model that can be run on your device using either CoreML, TensorFlow or WindowsML (we looked at using TensorFlow in an Android app in an earlier blog post).

Guest Post: Visual UI tests on iOS simulator using Xamarin and Appium

Sophie TagarJuly 30, 2018Jul 30, 201807/30/18

In this tutorial, you will learn how to integrate automated visual user interface tests into a development toolchain that includes Xcode iOS simulator using Xamarin, Appium, Applitools, and macOS.

Export To Application Insights With AppCenter Continuous Export

Mayur TendulkarJuly 9, 2018Jul 9, 201807/9/18

Five-star mobile apps have one special feature: they don’t let go of their users. This can be achieved by understanding your app, the app’s users, and how these users interact with your app. The deep customer insights offered by AppCenter's Continuous Export provide a better understanding of your customers and help boost retention. By default, you receive information about your active users, their active sessions, top devices, country, language, and more!

More Cross-Platform APIs with Xamarin.Essentials Latest Preview

James MontemagnoJune 14, 2018Jun 14, 201806/14/18

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

James MontemagnoMay 16, 2018May 16, 201805/16/18

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

James MontemagnoJanuary 16, 2018Jan 16, 201801/16/18

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.

Bringing Communities Together: Xamarin MVPs Join Microsoft MVPs

Jayme SingletonSeptember 1, 2017Sep 1, 201709/1/17

The Xamarin MVP Program and Microsoft MVP Award Program share a common bond in recognizing leaders who make outstanding contributions to our technical communities. In the last year, we've taken steps to bring our communities closer together, by making Xamarin University and Microsoft MSDN benefits available to all members of both programs,

Fast & Simple Android Location Updates with Google Play services

James MontemagnoAugust 24, 2017Aug 24, 201708/24/17

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

James MontemagnoAugust 18, 2017Aug 18, 201708/18/17

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

James MontemagnoAugust 7, 2017Aug 7, 201708/7/17

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.

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