KarValueX- a Multi-platform Mobile Application to Check Car Prices!

KarValueXiOS

KarValueX is a Multi-platform Mobile Application. KarValueX app is near identical of KarValue app that was published almost a year ago. The difference is- KarValueX is being built using Visual Studio 2015 and Xamarin Forms and KarValue was built using Visual Studio Apache Cordova template. KarValueX is native and it is much better in many measures including performance and maintainability.

KarValueX is now available in- iTunes Store and Windows 10 Store.

“My #1 choice was VS 2015 with Xamarin but there is a cost and I am not ready to pay for Xamarin (at this time). So, I am patiently waiting for Microsoft’s next move on Xamarin’s licencing. Hopefully, I would be building this app in VS 2015 with Xamarin in near future. Now that Xamarin is owned by Microsoft, I am hoping Microsoft would make Xamarin for free (or least costly) to entice lot of developers to build Windows app!” That was one year from now, as I mentioned in my blog, and a lot of things has changed since then. Xamarin is Free if you have Visual Studio and App development with Xamarin became much simpler. You never have to leave Visual Studio to run and test iOS apps. Yes, you do need a Mac (not the Burger!) but it is under the hood!

I am happy to announce that KarValueX is available today in Windows Store. Why publishing app in Windows Store? I believe in achieving success in small but decisive steps. It’s a good way to test the water! I would be working towards publishing the same app (from same code) to iTunes Connect and Google Play. Stay Tuned for more update soon.

Try on Windows 10 Desktop and/or Windows 10 Mobile:

KarValueXWin10

Next milestone? I am heading to iTunes! It’s very cumbersome to meet Apple’s requirements before you can be ready to upload the App. No blame to Apple because they are known for attention to details! It was easy to package the .ipa file right from Visual Studio and VS told me I can find the package to a folder (it gave me the name in VS output window, nice!) on Mac. Well, it is this time I must have to jump on to the Mac and upload the package through Application Loader. First couple of tries did not work well and it was not the codes. It had to do with missing images with exact sizes! I complied by adding the images to resources, recompiled and uploaded again. Now I have to wait for a week before someone at Apple will start the review process!

Well, the wait is over! Apple did significantly reduced the number of days it takes to complete the review process. It’s about two days to review as opposed to 7 days! KarValueX is now available on iTunes. I would not be going back to AngularJS/Cordova for mobile development. I left the previous version of KarValue in iTunes just for comparison.

KarValueXiOS

What’s next? KarValueX would be coming to Google Play, the biggest playground for apps. Hope to add more features like inventories and images once the initial cycle is completed.

This article was originally published at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/karvaluex-multi-platform-mobile-application-check-car-saha-mba