Creating a mobile app based on the ASP.NET Core website

Question

Coming from Desktop development, I'm in the middle of my very first web project (as a small side/learning-project). I'm using ASP.NET Core 2. I'm already thinking about going mobile too.

What are my best options here?

First thing that comes to my mind is separating logic and data interactions into web API, which will run along side the website frontend. Website will consume logic via REST. As for a mobile, I could use Xamarin and consume, logic, data persistence and authentication from API as well. I'll have to build UI twice, for web and mobile.. but I guess I can't avoid that.

Is it the way to go? Thanks for suggestions,

Answer 1

My experience with xamarin is that its a bit of a jack of all trades.

If you are keen to keep with a single tech stack then yes, .net core/framework apis + xamarin + azure is great. You can quickly get an app out on iPhone, Android and Windows

But, if you want a very polished app, which uses the UI specific to each platform to ita best advantages you may find that xamarin lets you down a bit.

Your other option would be to make a web app designed for mobile.

Answer 2

I would add to the previous answer above to avoid Xamarin Forms if you really want good UI. And use instead Xamarin Native which means you would need to create 2 separate UI, one for Android and one for IOS. The only disadvantage is that you need Mac for the IOS