5 ms·

Forgive my ignorance. Which application lets you write native iOS apps in C#? Thanks.

by acak 14y ago

d503 14y ago
MonoTouch http://xamarin.com/monotouch http://xamarin.com/monotouch
untog 14y ago
The guys who made this blog post make some software called MonoTouch. http://xamarin.com/ http://xamarin.com/ It costs $400 for a license, though. But boy I am tempted... I know, I know- you need to go with the native languages for the best experience. But keeping a huge chunk of my codebase between platforms is a very, very interesting idea to me.
- stouset 14y ago
  A very interesting idea to you, but one your users couldn't care less about. Never forget about the users.
  - untog 14y ago
    It would be an interesting idea to them if they have an Android phone and I wouldn't have the time to code for two platforms otherwise. I get that there is a tradeoff involved, but the Mono-x products are in an interesting space. They aren't webviews (like PhoneGap), they aren't a weird JS hybrid (like Titanium)- they're full native experiences. You'll get some newly released features later (I imagine), but the user experience really shouldn't be affected that much.
    - cageface 14y ago
      The Mono guys have been very quick to support new iOS features so far.
  - josephcooney 14y ago
    How is this bad for 'the users'?
- Fizzer 14y ago
  you need to go with the native languages for the best experience. With MonoTouch, you still write against the native iOS UI. Therefore, from the user's perspective, your app is native. Since the UI is the same, the only thing that could be different between an ObjC and MonoTouch app is performance. In my experience there's no noticeable performance hit with MonoTouch except for app startup time (my MonoTouch app takes about 2 seconds to startup on a 3gs)
- jbrechtel 14y ago
  "I know, I know- you need to go with the native languages for the best experience." What about doing this improves the experience?
- bratsche 14y ago
  MonoTouch does give you a native experience. It's basically a C# binding for native APIs. It also has a few nice extras like MonoTouch.Dialog which provides a much nicer API for doing iPhone dialogs than using UITableView (although you can definitely use the UITableView API directly if you prefer).
- cageface 14y ago
  The thing holding me back is Monodevelop. It's even worse than Xcode.
  - ConstantineXVI 14y ago
    Kind of surprised we haven't seen JetBrains step up with a Mono IDE yet. They've already got the IDEA platform and ReSharper, combining the two seems a logical next step.
    - henrikschroder 14y ago
      Interesting! Going from VS 2005 to 2008 to 2010, Resharper has gone from must-have to nice to not needed anymore for me, since most of the features I relied on have been implemented natively in VS. But MonoDevelop could sure use a lot of love...
    - mdaniel 14y ago
      I would bet they are bumping up against a developer bandwidth issue. Don't forget, they have about 6 commercial products, plus their own language now (and IDE, natch). The good news is that the community edition of IJ is Open Source (Apache licensed, IIRC) and there are quite a few existing language editors built on top of it. It isn't a rich client platform à la Eclipse or NetBeans, but I doubt such a thing would be required to win the affections of those who are unhappy using MonoDevelop.
- fuzzythinker 14y ago
  I'll be great if they support F#, but seems like not, 0 answers from googling, except for this request: https://xamarin.uservoice.com/forums/144858-xamarin-suggestions/suggestions/2699180-extend-monodroid-and-monotouch-to-support-f- https://xamarin.uservoice.com/forums/144858-xamarin-suggesti...
  - migueldeicaza 14y ago
    F# on Android is doable, and on our list of things to do. iOS is more challenging, since F# depends on some dynamic-ish features of .NET that are not currently supported by MonoTouch on iOS.
    - MichaelGG 14y ago
      I'm curious what F# features are you referring to? The generic hash/compare type functions?
      - malkia 14y ago
        Just guessing here, but code generation is not allowed on iOS.
        alexrp 14y ago
        Right, which means we can't handle generic virtual methods, since we cannot JIT compile them. See: http://docs.xamarin.com/ios/about/limitations#Generic_Virtual_Methods http://docs.xamarin.com/ios/about/limitations#Generic_Virtua...
philjohn 14y ago
MonoTouch
bryanl 14y ago
People have responded with MonoTouch, but there is also Unity3d http://www.unity3d.com http://www.unity3d.com. You can author games for quite a few platforms with it.
- moonchrome 14y ago
  Uses same VM - Mono, but has no bindings to native API's like monotouch/droid have
sambeau 14y ago
Unity http://unity3d.com/unity/pro/#extend http://unity3d.com/unity/pro/#extend

Forgive my ignorance. Which application lets you write native iOS apps in C#? Thanks.

by acak 14y ago

Forgive my ignorance. Which application lets you write native iOS apps in C#? Thanks.

d503 14y ago

MonoTouch http://xamarin.com/monotouch http://xamarin.com/monotouch

untog 14y ago

The guys who made this blog post make some software called MonoTouch. http://xamarin.com/ http://xamarin.com/ It costs $400 for a license, though. But boy I am tempted... I know, I know- you need to go with the native languages for the best experience. But keeping a huge chunk of my codebase between platforms is a very, very interesting idea to me.

stouset 14y ago
A very interesting idea to you, but one your users couldn't care less about. Never forget about the users.
- untog 14y ago
  It would be an interesting idea to them if they have an Android phone and I wouldn't have the time to code for two platforms otherwise. I get that there is a tradeoff involved, but the Mono-x products are in an interesting space. They aren't webviews (like PhoneGap), they aren't a weird JS hybrid (like Titanium)- they're full native experiences. You'll get some newly released features later (I imagine), but the user experience really shouldn't be affected that much.
  - cageface 14y ago
    The Mono guys have been very quick to support new iOS features so far.
- josephcooney 14y ago
  How is this bad for 'the users'?
Fizzer 14y ago
you need to go with the native languages for the best experience. With MonoTouch, you still write against the native iOS UI. Therefore, from the user's perspective, your app is native. Since the UI is the same, the only thing that could be different between an ObjC and MonoTouch app is performance. In my experience there's no noticeable performance hit with MonoTouch except for app startup time (my MonoTouch app takes about 2 seconds to startup on a 3gs)
jbrechtel 14y ago
"I know, I know- you need to go with the native languages for the best experience." What about doing this improves the experience?
bratsche 14y ago
MonoTouch does give you a native experience. It's basically a C# binding for native APIs. It also has a few nice extras like MonoTouch.Dialog which provides a much nicer API for doing iPhone dialogs than using UITableView (although you can definitely use the UITableView API directly if you prefer).
cageface 14y ago
The thing holding me back is Monodevelop. It's even worse than Xcode.
- ConstantineXVI 14y ago
  Kind of surprised we haven't seen JetBrains step up with a Mono IDE yet. They've already got the IDEA platform and ReSharper, combining the two seems a logical next step.
  - henrikschroder 14y ago
    Interesting! Going from VS 2005 to 2008 to 2010, Resharper has gone from must-have to nice to not needed anymore for me, since most of the features I relied on have been implemented natively in VS. But MonoDevelop could sure use a lot of love...
  - mdaniel 14y ago
    I would bet they are bumping up against a developer bandwidth issue. Don't forget, they have about 6 commercial products, plus their own language now (and IDE, natch). The good news is that the community edition of IJ is Open Source (Apache licensed, IIRC) and there are quite a few existing language editors built on top of it. It isn't a rich client platform à la Eclipse or NetBeans, but I doubt such a thing would be required to win the affections of those who are unhappy using MonoDevelop.
fuzzythinker 14y ago
I'll be great if they support F#, but seems like not, 0 answers from googling, except for this request: https://xamarin.uservoice.com/forums/144858-xamarin-suggestions/suggestions/2699180-extend-monodroid-and-monotouch-to-support-f- https://xamarin.uservoice.com/forums/144858-xamarin-suggesti...
- migueldeicaza 14y ago
  F# on Android is doable, and on our list of things to do. iOS is more challenging, since F# depends on some dynamic-ish features of .NET that are not currently supported by MonoTouch on iOS.
  - MichaelGG 14y ago
    I'm curious what F# features are you referring to? The generic hash/compare type functions?
    - malkia 14y ago
      Just guessing here, but code generation is not allowed on iOS.
      - alexrp 14y ago
        Right, which means we can't handle generic virtual methods, since we cannot JIT compile them. See: http://docs.xamarin.com/ios/about/limitations#Generic_Virtual_Methods http://docs.xamarin.com/ios/about/limitations#Generic_Virtua...

philjohn 14y ago

MonoTouch

bryanl 14y ago

People have responded with MonoTouch, but there is also Unity3d http://www.unity3d.com http://www.unity3d.com. You can author games for quite a few platforms with it.

moonchrome 14y ago
Uses same VM - Mono, but has no bindings to native API's like monotouch/droid have

sambeau 14y ago

Unity http://unity3d.com/unity/pro/#extend http://unity3d.com/unity/pro/#extend