7 Popular Apps Made By Xamarin Developers
Mobile phones are integral to our lives, they are constantly by our sides and used for so much more than phone calls. A huge part of this is the use of mobile apps. They help us in our everyday lives, allowing us to work smarter, stay informed, connect with others and unwind. However, for apps to be successful, they need to deliver value, offer great user experience and be available on all the leading platforms. That’s where Xamarin comes into its own. The open-source, cross-platform framework empowers developers to write code in a single language, saving significant time and resources while still delivering apps that have native user interfaces. It’s no wonder that Xamarin has gone from strength to strength, with an army of over 1.4 million developers using it for mobile development. It’s now the go-to choice for companies across all industries, energy, transport, media, healthcare and more. Of course, there is no need for you to just take our word for it; read on to find out more about some of the most popular, successful and fully-functional apps made by Xamarin developers/consultants.
1. Alaska Airlines
Alaska Airlines’ development team were able to reuse their C# skills to build a complete air travel partner with Xamarin. The aim was to create an app that could deliver the right information at the right time and in the right context to improve the customer experience. The cross-platform, Hopper, app provides detailed flight information, booking details, check-in functionality and more. With timely push notifications, responsive feedback and round-the-clock technical support, the app has been incredibly successful and has over a million installs.
2. Olo
Olo is a leading company for digital ordering and delivery programs that has built apps for brands such as Applebee’s, Wingston and Five Guys. The company turned to Xamarin to be able to speed up time-to-market for new apps, meet growing demand and deliver a better user experience. With existing .NET and C# skills, the company was able to bring talented in-house engineers to mobile while leveraging their existing skills. Olo has built both customer and employee-facing apps with Xamarin and has been able to take advantage of a solid release pipeline, real-time app monitoring and automated testing. The result is that all of Olo’s apps have a four-star rating or above in public app stores.
3. UPS
With the need to manage hundreds of millions of customer-tracking requests each day, the UPS Mobile App has its work cut out. The previous version had to be written and maintained across different platforms creating a huge amount of work to ensure that device type didn’t impact customer experience. UPS needed a faster, consolidated version of its mobile app to improve customer experience, ensure all devices receive new features simultaneously and reduce development time. In comparison to previous platform-specific versions, developers were able to quickly bring the new app to market with Visual Studio Tools for Xamarin while also creating great efficiency for years to come. The popular Xamarin app now has over five million installs and, as well as tracking deliveries, enables users to estimate shipping costs, find UPS locations, measure package dimensions and more.
4. Storyo
Portugal-based startup, Nativo Labs, was created to help people select photos to tell stories. To develop an app independently, the team turned to Xamarin. The framework offered them a faster time to market and the ability to focus on their idea rather than the engineering. The Storyo team focused on their existing C# skills without having to learn iOS development from scratch and built the initial app within just six months. Not only can users easily create captivating videos with amazing filters and transitions, they can co-create their content with brands and add contextual data. The app has users from almost 200 countries and has attracted attention from large consumer brands as a way to engage their users more deeply.
5. Captio
This Spain-based company wanted to develop an application to allow its employees to easily manage their expenses. Initially, they went for a hybrid development approach, but the results didn’t quite deliver. While the same features were available on different devices, they weren’t as good as native. Captio then tried to create native versions but the cost was high and maintenance was unmanageable. Finally, turning to Xamarin, the company hit the jackpot. Using previous C# experience, the development team were able to build the cross-platform app and reuse up to eighty percent of the code. The app integrates expense management into a single paperless workflow, automatically generating reports and extracting data and has had over 100,000 installs.
6. BBC Good Food
BBC Good Food is a worldwide brand that delivers recipes and food-related content to its customers. As its customers began searching and saving recipes increasingly on mobile, the company knew it needed to create a mobile-first experience. The aim was to build customer engagement and enable customers to access content from any device. To be able to release the app on all devices without compromising on quality, BBC turned to Xamarin. By partnering with NV Interactive and using Visual Studio Tools for Xamarin, they developed and released the initial app in just three months. A single platform approach was the only way to move that fast and Xamarin enabled them to do that while still ensuring native-quality. Now, over 500,000 customers have anytime, anywhere access to personalised recipes and relevant content, can share recipes with friends and family and browse for trending content.
7. Novarum DX
If you weren’t aware of lateral flow tests a few years ago, you most certainly will be by now. The tests indicate the presence of a substrate in a fluid by showing a line on a test strip. While simple to read for pregnancy tests, they have become more sophisticated and complex for other applications and accurate readings are more challenging. Novarum DX aimed to unlock the potential of lateral flow tests without the need for laboratory-based interpretation. The idea was to transform the smartphones in all of our pockets into diagnostic readers. However, native access to the camera and computational performance was fundamental. Xamarin helped Novarum DX to streamline the development process and create solutions for a variety of customers delivering a highly customisable interface, easy scanning abilities and immediate pass/fail results.
Could Xamarin Help Your Business?
If you want to develop an internal or external-facing app, you’ll want to ensure that it delivers on its promises. That means working seamlessly across all platforms, being easy to maintain and creating an incredible user experience. As you can see from the companies we’ve highlighted, Xamarin delivers on all of these levels. With Xamarin, you can harness existing development skills and save on both time and costs, all while creating sophisticated solutions to meet your business needs.