Xamarian.Forms vs Xamarain.Android

[John Strever]

OK soo no one shoot me over this question.  

I have never created a Xamarian project, but am tryign to get everything straight in my head before i start down a path.

 

But what is the difference in purchasing/using   Xamarian.Forms   or     Xamarian for Android UI?

Is Xamarian for Android the exact same thing only it wont "port" over to iOS/Windows?

 

Or is it more like Xamarian for Android is used in the Android platform specific folder (forget what Xamarian calls it), and Xamarian.Forms is in the Shard project folder?

 

[Stefan Nenchev]

Hello John,

The information you are looking for is available on Xamarin's website - Is Xamarin.Forms right for your project?, however, I will leave a short summary here as well.

If your application requires little platform-specific functionalities and you would like to concentrate on code sharing rather than custom UI, you should consider using the Xamarin.Forms approach.  

On the other hand, as each platform has its specifications, you can take advantage of that and use the Xamarin.iOS or Xamarin.Android solutions to customize the user interface on each of them and also use platform-specific APIs.

So, basically, it is up to you and the specific requirements you have to decide which approach will be more convenient. I suggest you have a more thorough look at the Xamarin documentation for more information on the matter.

Regards,
Stefan Nenchev
Telerik by Progress