Understanding the architecture behind Xamarin.Forms

Getting started with Xamarin.Forms is very easy, but it is always good to look behind the scenes to understand how everything is put together. In the earlier chapters of this book, we created a cross-platform application using native iOS and Android APIs directly. Certain applications are much more suited for this development approach, so understanding the difference between a Xamarin.Forms application and a classic Xamarin application is important when choosing what framework is best suited for your app.

Xamarin.Forms is an abstraction over the native iOS and Android APIs that you can call directly from C#. So, Xamarin.Forms is using the same APIs you would in a classic Xamarin application, while providing a framework that allows you to define your UIs in a cross-platform way. An abstraction layer such as this is in many ways a very good thing, because it gives you the benefit of sharing the code driving your UI as well as any backend...