It’s been a year since I posted however I did write to articles I didn’t publish. Been busy I guess. I had a game project that got destroyed when the client died. Those involved are still sorting it out.
Last week I published an update to Google Play for an app I first published in 2017. It is a desktop app that runs on mobile including iOS and Windows. It was developed using Xamarin Forms which MS stopped supporting in May 2024. That caused some consternation in the developer community because many felt that the replacement .net MAUI was really not ready for prime time. It was okay maybe for picture gallery apps or restaurant menus but not extensive apps.
So last week I published the MAUI version, a little rushed because the August 31st and we had to update the app to Android 15 to continue publishing. There were a few unexpected quirks. Some users thought they lost their data they had saved. But it was there but they just couldn’t see it because they were running Dark Mode on their Android device.
On Xamarin by default it ignored Dark Mode and if you wanted the option for the user you needed to add a theme for it. No one ever asked for it. Fortunately there was a workaround to ignore it for MAUI. That and a few other quirks required some quick updates. At the moment all is calm.
What I want to address is the attitude of some of the MAUI developers that the mobile industry is moving fast we all have to keep up with it. Those developers never apparently worked in the field and don’t know what it’s like to update particularly a large project. And it seems there is also an attitude of change for the sake of change (I was surprised deep digging through MAUI how much Xamarin still is there).
I think the general public might be just as happy if things slowed down a bit. My is based on a Windows app I wrote in 2003. That app can still run today even on Windows 11.