any alternative to Xamarin?

[Mr G Reaper]

Learnt recently that i an add an android solution to my universal app by using Xamarin. Now i followed the microsoft guide and had it all set up in visual studio (my ide of choice) but when i went to edit the layout of the android i discovered a detail the microsoft guides neglect to mention, you need a Xamarin buisness or higher account to do that (at the low low cost of $83 a month or $999 a year).
Quickly i totalled up all the sales my app has made (90 times downloaded at the cost of free so thats ?0 ) then i totalled up the income from advertising (no adverts in my apps so thats 2 x ?0 ok so thats ?0) and the money made from all the donations users have given me via paypal ...ok so thats ?0. i came to the conclusion that i could not afford to pay $83 a month.
its free for students so i emailed them, im not a student but if a company is willing to help students maybe they would help hobbyists too, after all they wont be losing anything. They offered me the indie license for $15 a month....that does not support visual studio and is still $15 more then my apps make in a month.

So here i am asking this question, is their a free way to add android to our universal apps in visual studio (community edition) ?

 

[kurotsuki]

I'm afraid no. Visual Studio 2015 is supporting Android apps. But that only use Apache Cordova (which is HTML5 based). No native support.

The only way we can get a (nearly) native experience on Android are using ADT on eclipse or Android Studio which is using java, or using Xamarin if you prefer C#. Btw, it's default cost is $25/month for indie license. Not $15. So if they offer you a $15, that price was already discounted. You can verify the pricing here.

 

[SURFThru]

You can try out DevExtreme by DevExpress. You can create mobile apps (code once, deploy to IOS or Android).

 

[Gary Walker5]

Marmalade SDK may be worth a look. C/C++ based, the free version does quite a bit. They have some pricy upscale versions too. People write some nice mobile apps using this. product. Never spent significant time with it personally.

 

[Threezool]

How hard/easy is it to convert a Universal app to Android/iOS with Xamarine?

 

[ads13]

How hard/easy is it to convert a Universal app to Android/iOS with Xamarine?

Depending upon your knowledge . Usually...

 

[Manfred Pohler]

How hard/easy is it to convert a Universal app to Android/iOS with Xamarine?

Convert is (much!!) more difficult than develope from start on for both I would say.
Although this depends a lot on you coding style and the type off app you make / convert.

A simple example may help to understand me better.
Assume I need to display a dialog (Yes / No).
This is a bit different on Android compared to Windows.

If the code is already there (written in mind that there is one way to do it) you'll have to mess arround in your code to "fix" all calls to it.
If you do in in mind of "different Message Box APIs" - you would have built an interface like "IMessageHelper".
Now the only thing to do - implement this interface for the other platform(s).
And find out (for an example) that this "AskYesNoMethod" needs to be async onn the "new plattform" - could also mean more work...

If you build from groudup - you would see such things from their first approach in your code - and build a well working solution for it.

Another thing are "pattern frameworks" - either if you use thirdparty ore write your own.
If your existing app uses a MVVM lib available for Windows but NOT for Android / iOS (Xamarin)...

In general - good seperation of UI from code as well as platform specific code from general (Xamarin) usable code makes it relativly easy to convert a universal windows app to other plattforms with Xamarin.

I work with Xamarin (former Monotouch) from the early days on.
I don't like their "Forms" (doesn't fit my kind of needs) - but it is really easy with their "native" approaches.

Pricing is much to high from my point of view.
Check out the "how much do you earn threads" and calculate how long it takes to get back the 2k for iOS + Android.

 

[XboxRacer159]

Well now Xamarin comes with Visual Studio for free, so pricing (depending on how they roll it out) shouldn't be an issue anymore.

Microsoft Makes Xamarin Free In Visual Studio, And Open Source | Digital Trends

 

[ayngling]

Well now Xamarin comes with Visual Studio for free, so pricing (depending on how they roll it out) shouldn't be an issue anymore.

Microsoft Makes Xamarin Free In Visual Studio, And Open Source | Digital Trends

Yeah, this was an awesome move, Xamarin is fantastic.

 

[Syncaidius]

Yeah, this was an awesome move, Xamarin is fantastic.

Agreed. This was the only reason I took a shot at porting an old WP8 game of mine to Android (and soon UWP). MonoGame relies on Xamarin for its cross-platform ability.

 

[Nathan Sokalski]

It is probably the hardest development task I have ever had to do or ever will need to do! I have spent my entire software development history (about 10 years or so) in Windows. But now that I am being forced to convert and rewrite all that experience, including custom controls and utilities, from UWP (and other code) to Xamarin, it feels like hitting the reset button on my brain. To put it simply, you can basically say I'm starting over. UWP & Xamarin may both claim to use XAML, but almost everything has different names, and is displayed differently. It's like learning to speak a new language, they may both have spaces between the words & a period at the end of a sentence, but all the words are different.