I’ve always said that when it comes to software development, you have to “pick your fights” – it’s just not possible to keep up with the ever-changing technologies. We only have so much time to spend learning new technologies and techniques so it is important to carefully consider what to focus on and what to let pass us by.

When it comes to Mobile development I have released a simple, native, Android app which was written using my somewhat rusty Java skills. At the time of writing the app is installed on around 5000 devices (if Google Play is to be believed). Since it’s original release I have addressed bugs and added a few requested features but I found it to be a bit of a struggle due to Java not being my main development language – but I simply don’t have time to bring my Java skills up to the required level. As for iPhone/iPad development I have joked that “I don’t have enough time left in my life to learn Objective C “. So when I heard about a product which will allow developers to create native applications for Android & iOS (and Windows Phone) using C# (my language of choice) I was naturally intrigued.

The Xamarin ‘framework’ provides a set of bindings which sit above the Android and iOS APIs allowing C# code to be compiled into native applications for the target platform. Moreover, it is possible to share large chunks of code between platforms thus reducing maintenance and duplication.

I’m currently in the process of completely rewriting the FillLPG application using Xamarin and C# with a view to reusing as much code as possible in order to ease the process of developing a version for iOS. It’s not been an easy process by any means – every new technology has it’s learning curve and fair share of bugs and issues, but because I’m using C# – indeed I’m also using Visual Studio 2013 – at least I’m not starting from zero.

The process of rewriting the FillLPG application has taught me a lot but as the old adage goes ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ so I’ve also enrolled onto the Xamarin University course at the end of February and all things being equal I should be certified by the end of March.

So I declare 2014 to be my year of the mobile. I will still keep as current as I can with web development but the mobile market cannot be ignored and with a tool such as Xamarin I’m now in a position to take it on.