Introduction

  • 2 minutes

Note

.NET MAUI is the next evolution of Xamarin and what we recommend you develop mobile and desktop apps with, and you can learn more about .NET MAUI in several training modules. This Xamarin training module will not be maintained going forward.

Delivering a quality mobile app is challenging. You not only need to know how your app is being used, you also need to be able to find and fix customer issues. When you fix those issues, you need to test and publish your app quickly to get the latest release to customers as soon as possible. How do you transition from code change to test to users quickly and automatically? You need to use a continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) system (CI/CD system).

Suppose you work at an athletic shoe company. You sell your shoes through a mobile shopping app. A recent update is preventing customers from placing orders. If you had a CI system that executes tests to validate customer use cases, you might have caught this issue before it was published to the app store.

The same day that you discover the issue with your ordering system, a developer has quickly solved the problem with a few changes to the app's code. By adding a test suite to verify the use case is working, you can help prevent future regressions. The CI system can run these tests every time a change is ready to be deployed. Additionally, CI can be coordinated with a CD system to integrate the fixed code and build app deliverables for internal and public beta testers, and confirm that the issue is resolved on user devices. Finally, when you are sure the app is ready for the general public, your CD system can automatically submit the new build to your desired app stores for review and release.

In this module, you'll create a Visual Studio App Center account and be introduced to the services that App Center can provide for your apps. For example:

  • Build app releases
  • Run unit and on-device tests
  • Deliver apps to testers
  • Publish apps to app stores
  • Collect analytics and diagnostics data
  • Send push notifications

Learning objectives

In this module, you will:

  • Evaluate whether App Center is appropriate to help improve your mobile development processes
  • Describe how the App Center services can help create development processes to deliver quality mobile apps efficiently

Prerequisites

  • None