[...]... start with iOS, Apple’s mobile operating system The main prerequisite for doing iOS development, or any Apple-based development for that matter, is that you need to be running Mac OS X This is a restriction set by Apple, so even though you will be using NET to build the application, there is no getting around this limitation On top of the operating system, in order to get up and running with iOS development, ... the phone has evolved into a powerful mobile computer The evolution has gone so far that the actual telephone functionality has essentially become secondary to the rest of the features Today’s mobile phone is now more than the sum of its parts It is your connection to the world The Players As with any fast-moving market, there are many players with skin in the mobile game at any given time This book,... all that much, but installing it is still a requirement Instead, MonoDevelop will be the primary development environment for writing iOS applications 9 MonoDevelop is a cross-platform, open source IDE, similar in style and capabilities to Microsoft’s Visual Studio To get started with iOS development with C#, you’ll also need to install MonoTouch, which installs as a plug-in for MonoDevelop Instructions... very likely to be compatible with the other two Technically, the Windows Phone platform supports developing applications using both the Silverlight and XNA frameworks Since XNA is more suited for game development, this book will focus on building applications with Silverlight By definition, games define their own user interfaces, so not all of the problems outlined earlier with regards to providing a... into your product’s documentation does require permission We appreciate, but do not require, attribution An attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and ISBN For example: Mobile Development with C# by Greg Shackles (O’Reilly) Copyright 2012 Greg Shackles, 978-1-449-32023-2.” If you feel your use of code examples falls outside fair use or the permission given above, feel free to contact... of a native user experience without having to rewrite the application’s main functionality every time (see Table 1-3) In Chapter 3, we will explore some techniques available to help keep as much code as possible in this shared layer and maximize code reuse across platforms Table 1-3 Application layers iOS Android Windows Phone Runtime Mono Mono NET Business logic C# C# C# User interface MonoTouch Mono... Native platform languages iOS Android C / C++ X X Objective-C X Java Windows Phone X C# X Visual Basic NET X The promise of a “write once, run anywhere” solution is nothing new in the development world It tends to come around whenever there’s a need to publish applications on multiple platforms, whether on the desktop or on mobile devices The mantra was originally coined by Sun when it was pushing for Java... using the NET Framework, as well as the benefits this method brings with it By using this approach, you can develop fully native applications across each platform without having to abstract away the user interface, while still being able to reuse the bulk of your code across them all In the next chapter, we will walk through setting up your development environment and building your first application on... Alternative Approach What I am going to propose is an alternative approach where you can leverage the power of the NET Framework, along with the powerful C# language, across all three platforms While this may sound similar to “write once, run anywhere,” the key difference is that C# and the Base Class Libraries are used as a universal language and library where the device-specific and user interface-specific... like to thank Angie and Roger for putting up with me while I spent most of my time working, and for helping keep me sane along the way Preface | xi CHAPTER 1 Surveying the Landscape The last decade has been nothing short of a whirlwind in the mobile space Phones have been transformed from simple conveniences to indispensable extensions of everyday life With high-resolution displays, GPS, cameras capable . class="bi x0 y0 w0 h1" alt=""