Xamarin

Developing Android Apps on Windows Arm Devices

I have gone all in on Arm devices! My main MAC machine is a Mac Book Air M1 and now my main driver at work is a Windows Dev Kit 2023 (aka Project Volterra). One tricky thing for developers is getting all the software we use to work properly on Arm. Things have come a long way since the original release of Arm devices for Mac and Windows. I have a full setup guide for my M1 for Xamarin and now .NET MAUI development, but what about Windows? Visual Studio 2022 recently released a full native Arm v…

James Montemagno

Enabling Users to Manage Subscriptions on iOS/Android

You know I love talking about in app purchases and subscriptions. Due to my InAppBilling [https://github.com/jamesmontemagno/InAppBillingPlugin] library I get all the "fun" updates when Apple or Google force developers to make changes to stay compliant. Upcoming is a nice large change from Google to push Android developers to use Billing v4 (which my library does!) and another is that we must now give users a way to easily manage and cancel their subscriptions. You may have recently s…

James Montemagno

Implementing In-App Subscriptions in iOS & Android with no backend servers

Over the years I have created several apps [https://montemagno.com/my-apps/] that I am super proud of, and for the most part, I have always put them out for free onto the app stores. More recently I have been experimenting with different monetization strategies for the apps so users can unlock features or just leave a tip. For the longest time I kept things simple with a "non-consumable" one-time purchase. The strategy is straight forward, they either purchased the item or they didn&#…

James Montemagno

Goodbye Android Emulators, the Windows Subsystem for Android is Here!

Android Emulators have been a pain in everyone's side for pretty much ever [https://docs.microsoft.com/xamarin/android/get-started/installation/android-emulator/?WT.mc_id=friends-0000-jamont] . Intel HAXM is great, but limited to Intel, then there were custom emulators like Xamarin Android Player and Genymotion, but required additional installs, and finally Hyper-V support, which brought with it AMD support, and side by side Docker support as well. But now, Windows 11 is here and so is a bra…

James Montemagno

Staged Rollouts & Phased Release on Google Play and App Store Connect

As an app developer it is hard enough to create your app, test your app, prep the app store listings, and then get your app approved. The last thing you want to think about is how fast or slow to roll out your app and updates to users. For the past 10 years all I have ever done was just release the app to everyone all at once, and for a long time this all that was available to us. However, now there are options for developers from both Google and Apple that can manage your release. Unfortunately…

James Montemagno

Long-running Operations on macOS and iOS with NSProcessInfo

One issue that sometimes comes up in app development is keeping your app alive and running during long running processes. In my case with My Stream Timer [https://www.mystreamtimer.com], when the user starts a timer, it needs to keep running no matter what. My first solution was to simply turn on Screen Saver mode. var appDelegate = ((AppDelegate)NSApplication.SharedApplication.Delegate); appDelegate.MainWindow.Level = NSWindowLevel.ScreenSaver; This solution "works" but has the si…

James Montemagno

Setting Up an M1 Mac for Xamarin Development

Who just upgraded their MacBook after 8 years?!?! This guy!!! Let's set it up for mobile development with Xamarin for iOS & Android development in C#. That is right, I finally decided to go all in on an M1 MacBook Air (8-Core GPU, 512GB SSD, 16GB RAM) thanks to the $500 "credit" from participating in the DTK program. Not only was it time for an upgrade since my machine was 8 years old, but also because this new generation of machines marks a pivotal transition for macOS devic…

James Montemagno

Cross-Platform In-App Purchases for Xamarin.Mac Apps!

This week, one of my best friends Frank Krueger released his brilliant app iCircuit 3D [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/icircuit-3d/id1539977373] for macOS (he also wrote an awesome blog [https://praeclarum.org/2021/02/08/tech-of-icircuit3d.html] on how it was made). While I know that catalyst support for Xamarin (and .NET MAUI) is coming soon, I still think there are great opportunities to monetize macOS apps written in C# today (see iCircuit 3D!). I released my In-App Billing Plugin [https://gi…

James Montemagno

Tags

Developing Android Apps on Windows Arm Devices

Enabling Users to Manage Subscriptions on iOS/Android

Implementing In-App Subscriptions in iOS & Android with no backend servers

Goodbye Android Emulators, the Windows Subsystem for Android is Here!

Staged Rollouts & Phased Release on Google Play and App Store Connect

Long-running Operations on macOS and iOS with NSProcessInfo

Setting Up an M1 Mac for Xamarin Development

Cross-Platform In-App Purchases for Xamarin.Mac Apps!

James Montemagno

Tags