back to article Microsoft, Xamarin give Visual Studio a leg-up for... iOS and Android?

Microsoft is giving a leg up to Windows developers building apps for iOS and Android using C# and Visual Studio, with dev specialist Xamarin. Xamarin has announced support for Portable Class Library (PCL), a subset of the .NET Framework that works across multiple platforms. The development was made possible after Microsoft …

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  1. Simon Harris

    Microsoft is giving a leg up to Widows developers

    What about those whose husbands haven't shuffled off this mortal coil?

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So it cost more then Visual Studio Pro.

    And that is for 1 target platform?

  3. localzuk Silver badge

    Makes sense for big app developers

    Software houses and the like will like this, as it means less need for porting teams etc...

    Not so useful for little indie developers at those prices.

  4. El_Fev

    Subcription only ??

    GTFO

  5. GordonJ

    So have Apple signed-on to this and agreed that this middleware can be used? All sounds great until you have an app where apple just say... no.

    The cynic might suggest that you build your app that'll work on Apple, Android and Windows devices then when Apple deny it, hey - the MS app store might just gain an extra app over the App Store helping those dreadful app numbers.

  6. Nick Ryan Silver badge

    Great. So now extremely inefficient apps can be written by default for iOS and Android as well as Windows (various versions).

  7. HollyHopDrive

    Next they'll claim...

    ....they invented the write once run anywhere thing - seem to remember Java trying to do that before Microsoft were a little underhand with that one. Still, all water under the bridge now.

    Good to see the penny finally dropping at MS that these days not everything is going to run on top of windows - and a happy place it is when there is a healthy mix of IOS, Android, Winphone. (and blackberry I guess ... though thats looking unhealthy these days)

    What will be interesting is to see what Apple make of this - they tend to take exception to anything that isn't 100% native IOS and built on a Mac.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  8. Mikel

    The horror

    Windows coder tools and skills on my Android? Can we require they put a warning label on the apps so we can make an informed choice?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I've heard the write once thingy before

    And it didn't work properly then either. Write once, run anywhere (as long as it's the developer's workstation).

  10. poopypants

    Been done before

    Unity (used for Kerbal Space Program, Deus Ex: The Fall, Sir You Are Being Hunted, Kentucky Route Zero, etc...) has supported C# (and Javascript - your choice) for years. It targets Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Windows 8, Windows Desktop, Linux and the Web, amongst others.

    Unity is well established, has a great reputation, and has a powerful version that is entirely free.

    1. M Gale

      Re: Been done before

      "and has a powerful version that is entirely free."

      So long as you're not developing for mobile. Or expect to run things multi-core. Or in 64 bit (except for Linux, apparently). Or want a more recent version of PhysX that actually uses hardware acceleration.

      Then it costs £1500, and that only fixes the "developing for mobile" problem. Cheaper than some game toolkits to be sure, but hardly "free".

      1. poopypants

        @M Gale (Re: Been done before)

        So long as you're not developing for mobile.

        No longer true. The free version now supports iOS and Android. (Since May, in fact.)

        See: http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/21/unity-game-engine-goes-free-for-ios-and-android-developers/

  11. Derek Clarke

    How to make money

    From open source to $999 per developer per year. Monetising Mono seems to have worked, so perhaps PCL being open sourced won't be such a bargain either.

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