.NET MAUI The new way to develop multiplatform application in .NET ecosystem

By Mirek on (tags: Android, iOS, MAUI, Mobile apps, .NET 6, Xamarin.Forms, categories: architecture)

Microsoft always intensivelly work to allow .NET developer create applications easier and faster. MAUI is another way to achieve that.

If you are a mobile app developer and want to create apps that target Android and iOS the .NET MAUI is something that you should consider. Multiplatform App UI (MAUI) is the next milestone in mobile development in .NET ecosystem. If you are like me, a software developer with long .net roots and c# experience, and wish to enter the mobile app development without a need to learn new programming languages, MAUI is for you.

In .NET MAUI you can create mobile and desktop application in C# and XAML using Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code on both Windows and MacOS. With MAUI you can target platforms like: Android, iOS, MacCatalyst (desktop apps on iMac) or WinUI (desktop apps on Windows).

MAUI

And all that having single project and single code base. The SDKs and APIs are heavily optimized to limit the inconsistencies of platform specific features.

According to roadmap .NET MAUI will be shipped in November 2021 along with .NET 6 shipment. At the moment (May 2021) the Preview 3 is available and you can find more info about it on project’s Github page here.
If you want to try MAUI preview version go here and grab the latest sample apps. You’ll have to install the .NET 6 Preview SDK and all the required mobile platforms workloads.

Is MAUI a replacement for Xamarin.Forms ?

No, .NET MAUI is an evolution of Xamarin.Forms that introduce many improvements and enhancements making the mobile app development easier and more robust. Most focus was put to make te developer experience better, single project development, unification of libraries and including new platforms (WinUI). 
More over as announced by David Ortinau (Principal Program Manager on MAUI) in his blog post, there will be an easy migration path for existing Xamarin.Forms. There is no need to worry that we will have to rewrite our existing mobile application. Xamarin.Forms will be supported another year after release of .NET MAUI thus there will be plenty of time to migrate our mobile Xamarin applications.

Cheers