What is .NET MAUI?

The easiest way to define .NET MAUI, is to say that it is Microsoft's powerful framework whose purpose is to create cross-platform applications, that is, applications for Windows, iOS, MacOS, Android, Tizen, among many others, reusing as much code as possible, both for business logic and for the graphical interface.

How .NET MAUI Works?

The architecture of .NET MAUI is very interesting, starting from the fact that we can write code in C# in its latest versions to perform any type of task on each of the platforms, including specific code for each of them.

The C# code that we write interacts with the .NET MAUI apis, which provides a series of bindings to be able to communicate with the operating system directly. The process is a little more complex than I describe here, but basically through the different layers in the framework, we can interact with the APIs of each native platform in a very simple way.

Is .NET MAUI production ready?

This question is more common than you might think. The problem is that there has not been much publicity about the release of the GA version of .NET MAUI, which occurred during the Build event in 2022.

This is because it was not part of the keynote announcements, so it was only through blog announcements and social media accounts that the GA release was made known.

How to install .NET MAUI?

.NET MAUI can be installed with the latest versions of Visual Studio.

The .NET MAUI App Development workload must be selected, as shown in the .NET MAUI installation guide.

The answer is yes.

Is .NET MAUI good?

This question, which I have heard on multiple occasions, has no single answer.
It all depends on the developer's level of experience with the .NET platform, whether they have ever worked with Xamarin, whether they know the C# programming language, whether they are familiar with the XAML markup language, among many other variants.

Personally, I have been working with the platform to develop mobile applications since practically the first versions of Xamarin Forms, so I have seen the evolution of the platform, and the potential it provides for mobile application development.

How to use .NET MAUI?

The use of .NET MAUI is mostly done using Visual Studio, as it provides tools that facilitate the creation of cross-platform apps, such as fast code writing tools, Intellisense and Intellicode, package generation for each app store, templates for different types of documents required by the project, among many other features.

A .NET MAUI project consists of XAML code and C# code, being the XAML code the one that allows to establish the graphical interface part, while the C# code allows to write the business logic, which we can reuse throughout the project. It is worth mentioning that it is also possible to write the graphical interface from pure c# code.

Will .NET MAUI support Linux?

The idea is that .NET MAUI can reach any platform, including Linux.

Although not officially supported by the team behind .NET MAUI, there are projects by its members that are doing their best to release a usable version soon. You can see the unofficial repository here.