.NET MAUI: The Evolution of .NET Mobile & Desktop Development in the Age of .NET 6

Get up to speed with .NET MAUI—what’s new from .NET Conf, .NET 6 and Telerik UI for .NET MAUI preview.

Charles Darwin once said that it is not the strongest species that survive but the ones that are most adapted to change. This statement rings valid for the technology field, where change is a constant and only those that adapt to it survive and thrive.

As the proliferation of devices becomes more evident, developers are faced with the Sisyphean task of providing support for their applications to a wide range of devices and platforms. That’s where the evolutionary power of .NET MAUI comes into the equation—it recognizes the changing environment of our modern tech and provides a solution for the most pressing developer challenges.

Think of .NET MAUI as the bridge between both devices and platforms that will effectively empower developers such as yourself to build native Android, iOS, macOS and Windows applications from a single code base. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

.NET MAUI @ .NET Conf

While .NET MAUI general availability is to be expected in Q2 2022, if the past several months are any indication for the future development of this novel framework, there’s a lot to look forward to, so stay tuned! As we celebrate the long-anticipated release of .NET 6—another major milestone in the unification effort from Microsoft—there will be plenty of talk and buzz about .NET MAUI framework!

If you are curious to learn more, be sure to tune in to Maddy Ledger’s session that demonstrates .NET MAUI in .NET 6. And this link will also get you more good stuff: Javier Suárez Ruiz will walk you through the drawn controls in .NET MAUI, and Pedro Jesus and Gerald Versluis will tell you everything you need to know about the MAUI Community Toolkit and the migration between the old (but gold) Xamarin Community Toolkit.

If you are a developer looking to explore the promise of cross-platform development, stay tuned and make sure to attend these .NET Conf sessions! In the meantime, let’s recap the evolutionary path of .NET MAUI and what our Telerik UI suite has to offer!

The Evolution to .NET MAUI

While some were lounging at the shores of Maui, the development team at Microsoft has been studiously working all summer on .NET MAUI, replacing Xamarin toolkits with .NET MAUI alternatives in July, revamping the layouts in August and previewing the .NET MAUI Community Toolkit in September as Xamarin.Forms sinks into the sunset. In October, the team provided stability to its 50+ existing controls and added support for Borders, Corners and Shadows.

Looking at the current roadmap for .NET MAUI, the framework is moving toward a bright future and, come Q2 2022, we will be looking at a true multi-platform application framework that will revolutionize the way mobile and desktop applications are built!

You might be asking yourself, Why should I evolve to .NET MAUI? Well, the one and only Sam Basu has given you 10 very solid points about what will get better as you evolve to this new multi-platform application UI.

The Promise of Telerik UI for .NET MAUI

The Telerik team at Progress has been excited to get their hands on .NET MAUI framework and begin building a comprehensive UI library for current and future clients who want to dive into the deep waters of cross-platform application development.

In May, we shipped our first patch of .NET MAUI controls in Preview and, ever since, we’ve been working toward expanding their numbers and platform reach! As of today, we have 24 UI components for .NET MAUI ranging from major, data-processing ones such as DataGrid, ListView and Charts to smaller ones such as various Picker controls and MaskedEntry.

Each new release of the Telerik UI for .NET MAUI is compatible with the latest Preview version from Microsoft and, as we move forward, we are targeting to provide general availability coming Q2 2022.

While we are working tirelessly to provide you with the best business-ready UI suite in the upcoming months, we’ve also dedicated resources to keeping you up to date with the latest community news via our Sands of MAUI weekly newsletter. Spoiler alert: the newsletter is currently being developed into a .NET MAUI application with the available Telerik UI controls! The app will be available for iOS and Android—you can see the entire process of building the application on Sam Basu’s Twitch Dev Show.

New to Telerik UI for .NET MAUI? Try It & Share Your Feedback

If you are new to Telerik UI for .NET MAUI, you can learn more about it via the product page. The Telerik UI for .NET MAUI controls are currently in Preview, and they are free to experiment with, so don’t wait—jump on the cross-platform development bandwagon!

We would love to hear what you think, so should you have any questions and/or comments, please share them in our Telerik UI for .NET MAUI Feedback Portal.