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Xamarin Interview Questions and Answers

Updated Apr 16, 2025

1. What is Xamarin?

Xamarin is a Microsoft-owned open-source platform used for building modern and performant applications for iOS, Android, and Windows with .NET and C#. Xamarin enables code sharing across platforms using a single codebase.

2. What are the advantages of Xamarin Development?

  • Native user interface and performance
  • Single codebase for Android, iOS, and Windows
  • Fewer bugs and easier maintenance
  • Large and active developer community
  • Integration with Visual Studio

3. What are the disadvantages of Xamarin Development?

  • UI development can be time-consuming
  • Larger app file size (3MB–15MB)
  • Platform-specific code may still be required

4. What are the development approaches in Xamarin?

  • Xamarin.Forms: Best for apps that share most UI code across platforms.
  • Xamarin.Native: Best for custom UIs and platform-specific performance.

5. What is the difference between Xamarin and Xamarin.Forms?

Xamarin provides platform-specific libraries like Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android. Xamarin.Forms is a UI toolkit that allows developers to build UIs across platforms from a single shared codebase.

6. What is Xamarin Profiler?

Xamarin Profiler is a tool integrated with Visual Studio used to profile memory usage and performance of Xamarin apps.

7. What are Xamarin Insights?

Xamarin Insights was a real-time app monitoring service. It was deprecated in 2016 and replaced by Visual Studio App Center for similar diagnostics and analytics features.

8. What are Xamarin.Forms?

Xamarin.Forms is a cross-platform UI toolkit that allows developers to design UIs with XAML and share them across Android, iOS, and Windows.

9. What is the extension of the class file in Xamarin?

Class file extensions depend on the platform. For instance, Android services use Android.App.Service and views use Android.Views.View.

10. How to add a service reference in Xamarin?

In Xamarin.Forms projects, right-click the project > Add > Connected Service > Choose service type and provide the required URL or metadata.

11. How to call API in Xamarin?

using System.Net.Http;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

public async Task<string> CallApiAsync()
{
    HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
    string response = await client.GetStringAsync("https://api.example.com/data");
    return response;
}

12. What is intent in Xamarin?

Intent in Xamarin.Android is used to launch activities or services and to pass data between them.

13. How to use intent in Xamarin Android?

var intent = new Intent(this, typeof(SecondActivity));
intent.PutExtra("key", "value");
StartActivity(intent);

14. What is the difference between Xamarin and Android Studio?

Android Studio is specific to Android development and uses Java/Kotlin with Gradle. Xamarin allows cross-platform development using C# with MSBuild and integrates with Visual Studio.

15. What are the Xamarin license terms?

  • Xamarin is free with Visual Studio Community for individual developers and small teams.
  • For enterprises, licensing terms of Visual Studio apply based on team size and usage.

16. What programming languages are supported in Xamarin?

  • C# (primary language)
  • F#
  • VB.NET (limited support)

17. What is the role of XAML in Xamarin?

XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language) is used in Xamarin.Forms to define user interfaces in a declarative way, usually following the MVVM pattern.

18. What is Prism in Xamarin?

Prism is a framework for building loosely coupled, maintainable, and testable XAML applications. It supports navigation, MVVM, and dependency injection in Xamarin.Forms apps.

19. Explain Xamarin ContentPage

ContentPage represents a single screen in a Xamarin.Forms app. It hosts a single content view and serves as the base class for most pages.

20. How to maintain different screen resolutions in Xamarin.Forms?

  • Use flexible layouts like Grid and StackLayout
  • Avoid absolute positioning or sizing
  • Use Auto and * for row/column sizing

21. How does Xamarin handle platform-specific functionality?

This can explore DependencyService, custom renderers, or platform-specific code.

22. What is DependencyService in Xamarin.Forms?

Interviewers love asking about this because it shows how developers integrate native functionality within a cross-platform app.

23. What are Custom Renderers in Xamarin?

This is useful when the built-in controls are not enough and customization is required.

24. Explain MVVM architecture in Xamarin.Forms.

It’s a key design pattern and knowing how it integrates with data binding and XAML is crucial.

25. How does Xamarin handle data persistence?

Can include SQLite integration or Secure Storage.

26. What is the role of Xamarin.Essentials?

Helps in accessing native features from shared code—like geolocation, battery, network status, etc.

27. How do you test Xamarin applications?

Include Xamarin Test Cloud or App Center testing capabilities.

28. What are the limitations of Xamarin.Forms compared to native development?

Important for developers to know the trade-offs.

29. What are Shell and its advantages in Xamarin.Forms?

Newer versions of Xamarin.Forms introduced Shell for easier navigation and layout structure.

30. What is the difference between Xamarin.Forms Shell and traditional navigation?

Highlights newer approaches versus older practices.

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