Xamarin chucks Apple fruit at Microsoft mobe wobblers

Microsoft wobblers tempted by the fruit of Apple's mobes can now indulge themselves from the comfort of their preferred development platform.

Cross-platform development start-up Xamarin has updated its development framework allowing Microsoft devs to build native iOS apps using Visual Studio. You could already build apps for Android and Windows using Xamarin.

The changes mean that now, for the first time, you can build native apps for iPad and iPhone using Microsoft’s C# from the comfort of your familiar Visual Studio layout, tools and menus. In the lingo of IDE makers the world over, this presumably makes you "more productive".

The change features in Xamarin 2.0 - which introduces Xamarin.iOS with a Visual Studio add-in.

Nat Friedman, Xamarin chief executive and co-founder, said in a canned statement that he reckoned Xamarin 2.0 would make it even easier for mobile devs to build native apps on "all major platforms". Microsoft welcomed the development, saying Xamarin 2.0 means Visual Studio and C# can now "target any platform".

Among other changes in Xamarin 2.0 are: a new IDE for multi-platform native mobile design, development, debugging and deployment called Xamarin Studio and an app store for code, third-party libraries, native UI controls and themes called the Xamarin Component Store.

Xamarin began life when Novell cut funding for the Mono Project. Mono was the implementation of C# and .NET Framework under an open-source licence for use on non-Windows platforms begun by Gnome co-founder Miguel de Icaza in 2000. De Icaza is Xamarin’s chief technology officer and co-founded Xamarin with his open-source running mate Friedman. ®