Mobile-Development

Visual Studio for Mac–Final–Released / Download Here

May 10, 2017 .NET, .NET Core 1.0, .NET Core 1.0.1, .NET Framework, ASP.NET, ASP.NET Core 1.0, ASP.NET Core 1.0.1, ASP.NET MVC, Mac OSX, MacOS Sierra, Microsoft, Mobile-Development, SignalR, Visual Studio for Mac, VisualStudio, Web API v2.0, Xamarin, Xamarin Studio No comments

Microsoft has released Visual Studio for Mac, a revamped and renamed version of Xamarin Studio with little bit look and feel changes to make it look like Visual Studio product line has been released.

With Visual Studio for Mac, you should be able to develop .NET/C#/ASP.NET based apps and XAMARIN Native and Forms based apps in Mac OS environment.

Visual Studio for Mac comes with different editions like as in Visual Studio 2017/Xamarin Studio such as Community, Professional and Enterprise.

Visual Studio Community for Mac – Free, fully-featured IDE for students, open-source and individual developers.
Visual Studio Professional for Mac – Professional developer tools, services, and subscription benefits for small teams.
Visual Studio Enterprise for Mac – End-to-end solution to meet demanding quality and scale needs of teams of all sizes.

Go through Release Notes here for more details.

Download:

Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova in Visual Studio 2015 RC

May 3, 2015 ANDROID, Cordova, CSS, CSS 3, HTML, HTML5, iOS, JavaScript, jQuery, Mobile, Mobile Frameworks, Mobile SDK, Mobile Services, Mobile-Development, PhoneGap, Visual Studio 2013, Visual Studio 2015, Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova, VisualStudio, VS2013, VS2015, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8 apps development, Windows 8.1, Windows Phone, Windows Phone Development, Windows Phone Store, Windows Store, Windows Store Development No comments

Microsoft has announced that with Visual Studio 2015 – Apache Cordova tools will be integrated within the main install bundle. Using Apache Cordova Tools for Visual Studio you will be able to develop cross-platform mobile applications using single codebase for iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

With support for native device capabilities (e.g. camera, accelerometer, contact), offline scenarios and popular JavaScript frameworks (e.g. Angular, React and Backbone), the Tools for Apache Cordova contain everything web developers need for building cross-platform mobile apps using Visual Studio.

What’s new in Apache Cordova Tools for VS2015-RC

Grunt, Gulp, Bower and Node-based Workflows – Starting with the RC release, it’s also much easier for you to build Cordova apps using tools familiar to many web developers.
New Templates from Ionic and Onsen UI – Ionic and Onsen UI templates are provided as optional to enable developers to try out the new frameworks. Each framework provides a variety of starting points to suit the most common project types.
Fresh Samples, Tutorials and Documentation

If you are using Visual Studio 2013, then you will have to rely on Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova CTP3.1 (Add On) to enable cross platform mobile development using Visual Studio 2013 Update 4.

This preview release for Visual Studio 2013 Update 4 and Visual Studio 2015 RC supports building apps for the following device targets:

Android 4+

iOS 6, iOS 7, iOS 8

Windows 8.0 and Windows 8.1 Store

Windows Phone 8.0 and Windows Phone 8.1

Benefits of using Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova:

When you develop apps using Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova, Visual Studio provides these benefits:

Easy installation. Manual installation of Cordova involves a lot of work to find, install, and maintain the correct version of all the third-party software required to support native platforms. Visual Studio handles all that for you by including a third-party dependency installer that gets you up and running in the first hour.

Plugin management. Cordova plugins provide access to native APIs using a JavaScript interface. Support for custom plugins like those that turn a mobile phone into a barcode scanner are critical to an app’s success. Visual Studio makes it easy to add plugins of all kinds, including core Cordova and custom plugins. You also benefit from IntelliSense for plugins in Visual Studio.

Unified debugging experience. Cross-platform development often requires a different tool for debugging each device, emulator, or simulator. Different tools mean different workflows and lost productivity every time you switch devices. With Visual Studio, you can use the same world-class debugging tools for all deployment targets, including iOS devices and emulators, Android devices and emulators, Windows, and the Apache Ripple emulator.

Write once, deploy everywhere. The common JavaScript and plugin APIs in Cordova make it easy to write an app using a single code base that deploys to all target platforms—iOS, Android, and Windows. Of course, you can always write platform-specific code if and when you need it.

Command line interoperability. The Visual Studio solution directly reflects the file system and is updated in real time. This means that it is easier than ever to use your favorite command line tool with Visual Studio.

Multi-Version Cordova support. The Visual Studio solution allows you to select different versions of Cordova at the project level.

Quoting from MSDN Article – Getting Started with Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova

TO Learn more USE THE FOLLOWING RESOURCES

Visual Studio 2015–Editions

April 30, 2015 .NET, .NET Framework 4.6, ASP.NET 5.0, Community, Editions, Microsoft, Microsoft SDKs, Mobile-Development, MSDN, MSDN, Visual Studio 2015, Visual Studio SDK, VisualStudio, VS2015, Web API, Web API v2.0, Windows 10, Windows Phone, Windows Phone 8.0 SDK, Windows Phone SDK No comments

With Visual Studio 2015 Microsoft has changed type of editions available as part the Visual Studio product line up, also made some changes to MSDN Subscription levels.

Changes in Visual Studio Editions

No more Premium and Ultimate edition of Visual Studio. There will only be 3 editions available:

Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition – Free, full-featured and extensible tool for developers building non-enterprise applications
Visual Studio 2015 Professional Edition – Professional developer tools and services for individual developers or small teams
Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise Edition – Enterprise grade solution with advanced capabilities for teams working on projects of any size or complexity, including advanced testing and DevOps

Changes in MSDN Subscription Levels

MSDN Subscription Levels also has changed: there will be only two subscription levels MSDN PRO and MSDN Enterprise. If you have a valid MSDN Premium subscription, it will be automatically upgraded to MSDN Enterprise, which is fully loaded as previous MSDN Ultimate.

Limited Period Upgrade Offer – 50% off on upgrade to Premium

Beginning May 2015 – Upgrade from : Visual Studio Professional with MSDN or Visual Studio Test Professional with MSDN to Visual Studio Premium with MSDN for 50% off the regular list price and get a free upgrade to Visual Studio Enterprise with MSDN automatically when Microsoft release Visual Studio 2015.

For more information follow: https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/vs-2015-product-editions.aspx

iOS – Swift vs Objective-C

December 28, 2014 iOS, KnowledgeBase, Mobile-Development, Objective-C, Swift Language No comments

Since the introduction of Swift by Apple( a new programming language for developing iOS apps using xcode) , among iOS developers it has become a myth that Swift is going to replace Objective-C.

I just would like to add my few cents to this view:

MYTH 1: Swift will replace Objective-C immediately

NO, Swift is a new and flexible way of developing iOS apps. Though it has advantage over Objective-C, in terms of performance, stability and simplicity. Objective-C has come so far and lots of apps developers prefers objective-c as their primary language for iOS development. It will take a long way for developers to migrate to Swift.

Apple doesn’t say you should migrate to Swift immediately, they have given you both options. Based on how flexible you are with each of these languages, you can choose to develop iOS apps using:

Swift
Objective-C
a Combination of both (this would me more applicable for existing applications).

Apple has just given you another option for Developing iOS apps. So don’t fear about migrating to Swift immediately.

MYTH 2: Existing apps should be migrated to SWIFT immediately

NO, Apple has given you a new concise language and syntax for iOS application development in fewer lines than traditional Objective-C.

You don’t have to migrate your existing applications to SWIFT, that’s not the intend. You have the flexibility to develop new features and additions to your apps using Swift (without upgrading or converting you code to Swift). Objective-C and Swift can co-exist in application development.

I hope that clarifies some of the confusions.

If you are a beginner and would like to learn about Swift, refer to the following articles:

Android Studio 1.0 released

December 10, 2014 ANDROID, Android Studio, Mobile, Mobile-Development No comments

Google Android Developer team has released version 1.0 of new IDE for developing Android apps. The new IDE is based on popular IntelliJIDEA platform(Community Edition) and Google Android is moving away from Eclipse based IDE for developing Android Mobile Apps.

Developers who willing to develop Android mobile apps should try the new IDE, and for existing developers Eclipse IDE based ADT plugin would be available for some time. Going forward Android Team would freeze releasing updates for ADT Plugin.

Android Studio 1.0 offers following features:

Flexible Gradle-based build system
Build variants and multiple apk file generation
Code templates to help you build common app features
Rich layout editor with support for drag and drop theme editing
Lint tools to catch performance, usability, version compatibility, and other problems
ProGuard and app-signing capabilities
Built-in support for Google Cloud Platform, making it easy to integrate Google Cloud Messaging and App Engine
And much more

You can download Android Studio 1.0 for Windows, Linux and Mac

Windows Phone Screen Sharing/Mirroring to PC

July 4, 2014 KnowledgeBase, Mirror Casting, Visual Studio 2013, VisualStudio, VS2012, VS2013, Windows, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Phone, Windows Phone 8, Windows Phone 8.0 SDK, Windows Phone Development, Windows Phone SDK, Windows Store Development No comments

Being mobile developer and strong follower of Mobile related technologies, always admire to demonstrate my work to my friends and colleagues. All this time I was fancy about iOS Mirroring provided through apps Reflector and Air Server. With help of these tools we used to mirror our iPad/iPhone to be mirrored to a Windows/Mac and then project that to large screen using a Projector. These tools seamlessly mirror your activities on iPad/iPhone and audiences get a live view of the application running in a Live Phone. Advantage is you don’t have to rely on iOS Simulators coming with XCode and iOS SDK alone to demo your applications.

Coming to Windows Phone, we can have the same through a Wired Connection. Probably in recent Microsoft demos you might have fancied how the presenters used to share their Windows Phone activities and features from their live phones. You don’t have to envy them, it is available for our use now.

Microsoft has provided an application to be installed on Windows/Mac or Tablets and through a Wired or Wifi.

Download Project My Screen App from Microsoft

It is pretty simple to use:

1. Just install the app on your Windows/Mac

2. Connect your Windows Phone to USB (wired)

3, Launch “Project My Screen App” from Start Menu. It will detect your phone and your will will be prompted to Accept the screen sharing. Click on ‘Yes’, and look how amazing it is to share your screen on PC.

PS: There is a caveat you all need to know, you cannot share DRM protected contents through this feature.