When organizations approach cross platform mobile app development using a native development approach, it requires development teams to maintain multiple code bases.  When a hybrid app approach is leveraged, organizations often find they are unable to provide all the capabilities of a native app.

Skyline leverages Xamarin for app creation as it minimizes the amount of platform specific code required to support the Android, iOS, and Windows apps providing users with a native app experience.
 

Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android (a.k.a. - Xamarin Classic)

What it provides

• C# used to build iOS and Android apps 
• Shared business logic
• Full use of the native SDKs
• Ability to leverage third party libraries

When to use it

• Apps that require specialized interactions 
• Apps with highly polished design (as the UI logic is separate for each platform)
• Apps that use many platform-specific APIs 
• Apps where custom UI is more important than code sharing 

 

Xamarin Forms

What it provides:

• Shared Business Logic and UI 
• C# Development
• Limited platform specific code

When to use it:

• Data entry apps 
• Apps that require little platform-specific functionality 
• Apps where code sharing is more important than custom UI 

  

Benefits for Microsoft Developer

• Limited ramp-up time for developers with .NET/C# experience 
• Visual Studio can be used for development
• Leverages all of the last features of C#  (Generics, Async, LINQ, etc.)

 

Hybrid Apps versus Xamarin?

Upsides of hybrid apps

• Web technologies 
• Write once, run on many platforms 
• Great for writing apps quickly 

Downsides of hybrid apps

• Sluggish performance
• Less UI polish / less native look and feel 
• Sometimes you simply hit a wall and cannot build what you can with a Xamarin or Native app

When to use hybrid apps

• When your team only has HTML/javascript experience 
• Having a polished UI is a low priority