Xamarin 4 Features - Everything You Need For Native Mobile App Development

Xamarin 4, a resourceful release by Xamarin, is a complete mobile app development platform to build great apps from start to end. It is a package full of major enhancements to the Xamarin Platform and Xamarin Test Cloud along with the release of its real-time app monitoring service – Xamarin Insights.

Xamarin business features provide an integrated, complete solution to build, test, monitor and accelerate mobile app development at scale. It allows developers to deliver fully native Android and iOS apps by reusing code up to 95% across various mobile operating systems. With Xamarin C#, developers can do everything they did in Java, Objective-C or Swift. Let us take a closer look at the major features of Xamarin 4 highlighted below:

Xamarin Insights:

Xamarin Insights is now generally available. It provides automatic crash reporting and seamlessly tackles all mobile crashes – managed or unmanaged. It also allows you to report errors and warnings to Xamarin Insights and track them via the dashboard. You can rank the issues by impact, spot patterns in app or device usage and diagnose the corresponding ones. It is a vital tool for businesses to determine challenges and track usage metrics proactively which are crucial to measuring the ROI and ensuring high user satisfaction along with app store ratings.

Xamarin.Forms 2.0:

Xamarin.Forms has evolved into a fantastic tool for developing real production apps without compromising the user interface design. It brings a truly native experience with cross-platform advantages to the development world. The latest features of Xamarin.Forms 2.0 include: over 40 controls and layouts, support for pre-compiled screens outlined in XAML, support for iOS 9, preview support for Universal Windows Platform applications, Android Material Design and new gestures like punch and pull-to-refresh.

Xamarin Test Cloud:

Xamarin Test Cloud is an excellent tool to automate the testing process and Xamarin has upgraded the ante by launching Xamarin Test Recorder and Xamarin.UITest 1.0. Both of these tools make the writing and running tests processes smoother.

1. Test Recorder utilizes a simulator or USB-connected iOS or Android gadget to record interactions— swipes, text input, page navigation and taps. It automatically creates test scripts which can quickly run on over 2,000 devices in Xamarin Test Cloud, or imported into mobile test projects within Visual Studio and Xamarin Studio.
2. Xamarin.UITest 1.0 is a C# test automation framework. It offers support for advanced testing scenarios such as local testing and captures video of tests execution. Earlier it was restricted to Xamarin Test Cloud users, but now the company has made Xamarin.UITest free for everyone, with no restriction on test time.

Xamarin offers various subscription tiers for businesses with ramping applications which includes Xamarin Insights and Xamarin Test Cloud to match your requirements. It also offers a new paid plan called “Xamarin Ultimate” that gives you full access to all the features of Xamarin Platform, Insights, Test Cloud and University for your entire development team at a reasonable price. So, dive into the immaculate world of Xamarin 4 and take your native mobile app development to another level.

Are you using Xamarin 4 for your cross-platform app development projects? Let us know which other features of Xamarin 4 are more conducive.