Do you prefer your mobile apps native? Then we invite you to check out our new iOS and Android chart controls: demos are available now on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and registration is open for the Beta testing program set to start next week.
To be absolutely clear - these are native controls for Xcode and Android Studio development, with Xamarin wrappers available for those favoring C# and VB.NET. They are not the write-once Xamarin.Forms controls like our Data Grid. Nor are they based on HTML-JS technologies, which is our DevExtreme product line. To summarize, we're introducing a new option to our developer tools portfolio and it's only you who can choose what works best for your projects. To quote Jonathan Swift: "All true believers shall break their eggs at the convenient end: and which is the convenient end, seems, in my humble opinion, to be left to every man's conscience."
Here's what you need to know about the upcoming controls - from specifications to signing up for the Beta version:
Platforms, Languages, and IDEs
As I already mentioned above, we provide both native controls and wrappers, and here's a breakdown of IDEs and languages you can use in development:
iOS Chart Control requires iOS 9.3+ and supports:
- Xcode with Objective С or Swift
- Visual Studio with C# or VB.NET
Android Chart Control requires Android 4.1+ and supports:
- Android Studio with Java
- Visual Studio with C# or VB.NET
At this time, we are shipping Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android assemblies. Xamarin.Forms is on our To-Do list, but we are still figuring out how it should be prioritized. This is where your feedback will help us - we'll need to choose between more features for native platforms or Xamarin.Forms support. And speaking of the features, let me start with the most important one.
Performance
Performance on large datasets and fast real-time data updates have been the center of our attention since the planning stages. The table below lists a few of the tests we conduct regularly to make sure we're on the right track. We measure time or visually review UI responsiveness. Although measurements are taken on a device that might not be your target smartphone or tablet, and our visual UI inspection is certainly subjective, the table's main purpose is to demonstrate the dataset sizes you can work with. By leveraging hardware GPU acceleration, we enable the chart controls to handle 5-20 millions of data points, depending on the mobile device.
| Operation | Data Points | iOS | Android |
| Data Loading | 1,000,000 | 0.53 sec | 1.8 sec |
| Scrolling and Zooming | 1,000,000 | Fast and smooth | Fast and smooth |
| Real-time Updates | 1,000 | Fast and smooth | Fast and smooth |
We do compare performance with competitors and our results vary from "on par" to "much better". Our team does feel they've managed to nail down performance optimization and the chart controls rival any other in data loading, update and rendering speed. It's hard to be more specific given the variety of scenarios and hardware, or the limitations different chart control impose on source data types or data analysis capabilities. In the end, the Beta version will give you an opportunity to compare our chart to any existing solution you might have tried.
Performance does come first, but never at the expense of usability. Optimizations never went too far to compromise API simplicity or functionality. Obviously, parts of functionality are still on our To-Do lists, but the basics are done and the next section touches upon the key features you can try in the Beta version.
Chart Types and Features
Here are the chart types shipping with the Beta version:
- Point and Bubble
- Line: Regular, Scatter, Step Line
- Area: Regular, Step, Stacked, Full-Stacked
- Bar and Column: Side-by-side, Stacked, Full-Stacked, Side-by-side Stacked
- Pie and Doughnut
- Candle and Stock
And here are a few key features worth mentioning:
- Scrolling and zooming
- Point selection
- Element hit-testing
- Tooltips
- Date-time data aggregation
The One Thing We Can Announce about Licensing
Good news for Universal subscription owners - once we launch, you can use the chart controls in production at no additional cost.
Demo Apps on Apple App Store and Google Play Store
You can see the controls in action right now - simply download the demo apps from the corresponding store:
Register for the Beta Today
If you're interested in trying out our iOS or Android chart controls in your projects, please follow the link below and fill out the registration form. We will follow up with links to the distribution that will contain all the required assemblies and documentation.
As always, post a comment below should you have any questions.