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Comment by migueldeicaza | Hacker News Reader

We do not actually provide a lowest-common-denominator.

It is simpler to think of Xamarin as providing you with:

* C# language on iOS, Android, Mac * 1:1 API bindings to whatever is native on a given platform. On iOS, the CocoaTouch APIs, on Android, the Android APIs, on Mac the Cocoa/CoreFoundation-based APIs.

From this basic setup, you can already see that you wont get code that will run on all platforms. You will need to split your code into cross-platform code (database access, web services, xml, json parsing, offline caches, authentication) and things that are UI-specific (Android activities, Android widgets, iOS View Controllers, and so on).

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>We do not actually provide a lowest-common-denominator.

This actually is the reason I keep away from Xamarin, and I guess I'm not alone...

I think that there is a room for having a cross-platform lowest-common-denominator, including UI, File system, Networking, etc... with ability to dive into platform specific details when needed.

We've got some abstractions that build on top of the native APIs as well such as Xamarin.Mobile.

Nothing stops you from treating Xamarin as one.

But it also supports the full experience for each platform.

You can't treat Xamarin as one... e.g. you can't write a simple calculator UI in a cross-platform way - You would have to code the UI part separately for iOS and Android.

At least, that's my understanding and OP (Miguel) confirms it. And I guess your mileage won't vary in this aspect ;)

Although, Xamarin.Mobile is a step in the right direction, as commented here.

>You can't treat Xamarin as one... e.g. you can't write a simple calculator UI in a cross-platform way - You would have to code the UI part separately for iOS and Android.

Yes, but they do offer a "base" abstraction layer besides the C# libraries, that includes stuff like GPS access, accelerometers, etc.

As for the UI part, one could use a Webkit View as the view, and link the various heavy actions to C# code. For something like a common denominator UI, for a simple calculator or some form based stuff, it would be perfectly fine.

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