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Is there a way to write iphone and android apps using visual studio and c#? Also if I make a phone app can I easily write it for android, iphone, and windows without havong to write it in 3 different languages?

Nick LaMarca
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  • *facepalm* Yeah, you probably could. But you'd be shooting yourself in the foot. I bet if you really wanted, you could write windows stuff in Objective-C... Good luck – Aurum Aquila Feb 24 '11 at 05:38
  • possible duplicate of [Is it possible to write apps for Android in C# ?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3039053/is-it-possible-to-write-apps-for-android-in-c) and [iPhone Development using Visual Studio](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/998235/iphone-development-using-visual-studio) – Michael Petrotta Feb 24 '11 at 05:42
  • If you find which you are looking for, you will end up to learn all to be familiar with the target system architecture. – Waqas Raja Feb 24 '11 at 06:27

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xamarine is another approach. You can create both Android and iPhone/iPad apps.

Andreas Venieris
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MonoTouch

MonoTouch allows developers to create C# and .NET based applications that run on Apple's iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch devices

MonoDroid

MonoDroid is a development stack for using C# and core .NET APIs to develop Android-based applications.

XNATouch

MonoGame is a free implementation of the XNA Framework for MonoTouch, MonoDroid and Mac OS X.

Kazuki Sakamoto
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    You should probably have pointed out that MonoTouch will require a mac, MonoDroid isn't publicly available right now, and XNATouch is just a set of libraries for MonoTouch... – apiguy Feb 24 '11 at 05:50
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Just to add to the list:

UmbrellaSDK http://www.umbrellasdk.com

Web development tool for creating portable apps for iPhone as well as Android. You can publish apps to the App Store or Google Play since the apps can be packaged as native on each platform.

DragonFireSDK http://www.dragonfiresdk.com

Allows iPhone development on Windows (using Visual C++, even Express editions) using C/C++. Apps are fully native and compiled on a Mac server and delivered to your device over the air.

Cheers!

Tim
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Although Visual Studio is really good for Windows and Windows Phone development, it won't help you with Android or iPhone development by itself. And C# being from Microsoft, it's got good support for Windows, and then lesser support through avenues such as Mono. That being said, C# and .NET are open specifications so it is possible to see them on non-Microsoft products such as an Android phone.

That means there are opportunities for using an engine that has been designed as multiplatform. If you're making games, then you can use a platform such as Unity 3D. Unity can be programmed using Visual Studio and scripted using C#. It's also free for personal programming, but the iPhone version does cost money.

Along those same lines, Adobe makes Adobe® Device Central CS5 software. It's programmed with Actionscript, not C#, but I think they are very similar methods of programming. CS5 can be used for both iPhone and Android.

Nokia's QT supports a lot of platforms, including Mac and Windows, Symbian and Linux. There's a port for Android called Necessitas. However, I don't think there's support for iPhone just now.

The main question consideration then is whether you will be happy with your final product. The programming language or engine that you use has a certain influence on how well you achieve your goals.

If you're making a game and know C# already, you might consider Unity although there is a bit of learning involved. I do know that some game studios are using Unity for their games. Check out AirAttack, Startrooper and Batching, as well as the games on this thread: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/14591-Unity-iPhone-Apps-in-the-Store-List-Yours-Here/page39.

PS: even if you're programming Unity on a Windows computer, at the end of the day to publish on the iPhone you would need to have a Mac and an iPhone SDK installed on it. So technically the answer is yes, you can write iphone apps using visual studio and c#. But to get them into the store and onto an iPhone, you need to perform some steps outside the Visual Studio development environment.

Tom Anderson
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  • Im not sure I fully understand what your saying about Mono? What do I gain by buying Mono? What exactly does it give me? I wouldnt think the UI's can be created with xmal is that correct? There isnt gonna be a way to directly develop applications on the Iphone the windows way correct? – Nick LaMarca Feb 25 '11 at 01:48
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Unfortunately, the short answer is no. But here are some resources that will help you out:

MonoTouch

MonoTouch allows you to build iPhone applications using C#. Unfortunately it is not free, and you need to run it on a Mac.

PhoneGap

PhoneGap lets you build cross-mobile-platform apps using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. And it's free! No VisualStudio support.

Adobe Flash CS5

With some recent plugins Adobe Flash can now build and publish/package applications for Android and iPhone, as well as desktop applications.

apiguy
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  • Yeah. MonoTouch isn't free. Don't tell him the price or he'll start developing WinPhone7 apps. – Aurum Aquila Feb 24 '11 at 05:49
  • @Aurum - I'm not sure what you're getting at. Were you suggesting there is something wrong with developing apps for Win Phone 7, or the people who do? – apiguy Feb 24 '11 at 05:55
  • @free-dom No man, not at all. I write for everything - I'm just a hobbyist programmer. I was saying that he'd probably prefer to write in stuff he's comfortable with if he's this intent on using VS to write for the iPhone. – Aurum Aquila Feb 24 '11 at 06:05
  • @Aurum - Ah. Yeah that is probably a better place to start if you've already got Visual Studio. I think the real challenge with the various platforms though isn't the different languages, but the different system architectures in general. – apiguy Feb 24 '11 at 06:12
  • Yeah. But in all seriousness, if he knows C# so well that he wants to use it for iPhone dev, I have news - all he has to learn is Xcode. C# and Obj-C are *pretty much* the same. Except for protocols. I got up and running in one month during the school holidays. You just have to sit down and *do* it. Thinking about Visual Studio or Code::Blocks/Qt/Eclipse just wastes time... – Aurum Aquila Feb 24 '11 at 06:16
  • I have a mac computer. I have created a few things in xcode, but the controllers and the framework to layout apps takes me longer than making the same app for windows phone. So, if I buy mono tough I can create IPhone apps with c# in visual studio no problem correct? – Nick LaMarca Feb 25 '11 at 01:44