Recently priced out Xamarin for my organization, that is super expensive. Do most people buy just 2 platforms (Android and iOS) per developer?
How does Xamarin do with differences like the Android Action Bar vs. Apple's bar at the bottom?
How does Xamarin do with differences like the Android Action Bar vs. Apple's bar at the bottom?
I started doing an Android app using it and loved it but when it came to pay for the developer version, I couldn't justify the cost - especially for an ecosystem that is constantly changing (and therefore requires constant updates which are also paid). I sucked it up and re-wrote the app in Android Studio. Nowhere close to as pleasant as Xamarin but got the job done.
Xamarin leaves details to do with views and presentation up to you. In a properly designed application using MVVM pattern you can use the appropriate native and best practices per platform.
What Xamarin basically does for you (from my experience using it) is that you can now share the bits of code that are not OS-specific (like your business logic, data access layer, web services etc...). It doesn't try to hide the underlying platform from you though.
It's not a solution for write-once deploy everywhere (those solutions suck anyway).