Touching Base with .NET MAUI Essentials
Tags: dotnet, csharp, maui, mobile
Published: 2022-03-02 13:26:23

---
title: Touching Base with .NET MAUI Essentials
published: true
date: 2022-03-02 11:30:04 UTC
tags: dotnet, csharp, maui, mobile
canonical_url: https://www.syncfusion.com/blogs/post/touching-base-with-net-maui-essentials.aspx
cover_image: https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/4fsccbwz50a9n39vp0an.png
---

Howdy! I’m very excited that you, dear reader, are here. In this article, we will be answering a question most developers have had in mind ever since the news of .NET MAUI broke: **What will happen to Xamarin Essentials?**

Also, we will be talking about the future of applications that already use Xamarin Essentials, and we’ll take a small tour of some of the great APIs that we can continue using in .NET MAUI!

## Introducing .NET MAUI Essentials

In .NET MAUI, we are going to continue working with the wonderful set of APIs provided by Xamarin Essentials, but it will be called **.NET MAUI Essentials**. Just like Xamarin Essentials, it is a set of cross-platform APIs that allow access to the amazing functionalities of different platforms such as [Android,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system) "Wikipedia page for Android") [iOS,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS "Wikipedia page for iOS") and [UWP,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Windows_Platform "Wikipedia page for UWP") which you can access from shared code in .NET MAUI. The Microsoft team has been actively working to make this a smooth transition to .NET MAUI.

## When will .NET MAUI Essentials be available?

It’s available now! Preview 6 of .NET 6 and .NET MAUI gave us access to all the APIs that Xamarin Essentials provided to us in Xamarin, but for .NET MAUI.

For this reason, if you go into the **.csproj** file, you will see that the **UseMaui** tag is already present in a line similar to **<UseMaui>true</UseMaui>****.**

You just have to add the namespace **using**  **Microsoft.Maui.Essentials;** and you can continue working as before!

**Note:** To learn more about .NET 6 Preview 6, refer to the blog [Announcing .NET 6 Preview 6](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/announcing-net-6-preview-6/?WT.mc_id=friends-0000-jamont "Blog: Announcing .NET 6 Preview 6 blog"). To learn more about .NET MAUI Preview 6, refer to the blog [Announcing .NET MAUI Preview 6](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/announcing-net-maui-preview-6/?WT.mc_id=friends-0000-jamont "Blog: Announcing .NET MAUI Preview 6").

## What if I want to upgrade my Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android apps to .NET 6 without .NET MAUI?

Some developers want to migrate to .NET 6 without .NET MAUI, but still want access to the .NET MAUI Essentials set of APIs.

To do so, they just need to add **<UsingMauiEssentials>true</UsingMauiEssentials>** to their .NET 6 iOS and Android apps to incorporate all the latest APIs.

## Let’s take a tour some of the most exciting APIs from Xamarin Essentials

Here are some of my favorite APIs available in Xamarin Essentials!

- **SMS:** Imagine you want to copy a message from your application and paste it in an SMS message. This could prove difficult depending on the device. As part of being a developer, it is our responsibility to provide a good user experience. In this case, we should strive to accomplish the task in fewer steps without altering the result. With the SMS API, you can open the device SMS sender with all the corresponding data already added—you just have to hit send! This is why I love it!

- **Email:** This API allows us to send email quickly and easily without affecting the performance of the application.

- **Share:** We want to share files all the time, sometimes to support some information we just shared, or to make information more clear. This is where the Share API comes in handy.

- **Preferences:** I love Preferences! This API helps us save information on the device to make certain functionalities easier. For example, we can use it to save an email address the end user uses to log in to an app so they don’t have to re-enter it every time. ** **

- **Map:** The Map API gives us a simple, precise, and concise way to guide a user to a certain location from within our application. ** **

- **Contacts:** The Contacts API helps us obtain information from the contacts saved to the device and interact with it directly. ** **

- **Flashlight:** This is just one example of an API that helps us manage a specific hardware functionality from our app. Others include Accelerometer, Barometer, and Battery.

There are other super useful and impressive APIs that if you have not inspected them, I recommend you to take a look! ** **

**Note:** To learn more about APIs, refer to [Xamarin.Essentials documentation](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/essentials/ "Documentation: Get Started with Xamarin.Essentials").

## Important points to remember leading up to .NET MAUI:

- Microsoft will continue supporting Xamarin Essentials until November 2022 ([same schedule as Xamarin.Forms](https://github.com/xamarin/Xamarin.Forms/wiki/Feature-Roadmap "Xamarin.Forms Feature Roadmap on GitHub")). Requests for bug fixes and new versions of services will be released and will continue to be accepted until November 2022.
- Your experience with .NET MAUI Essentials in .NET MAUI Preview 6 is very important to its development. You can share your thoughts by interacting with the developers responsible by accessing the [dotnet/maui GitHub repo.](https://github.com/dotnet/maui ".NET Multi-platform App UI overview on GitHub")

- Also, take a look at the [.NET MAUI product roadmap](https://github.com/dotnet/maui/wiki/roadmap ".NET MAUI Roadmap on GitHub") to see what else is on the way.

## Conclusion

I hope you’re even more excited about .NET MAUI than you were before reading! .NET MAUI represents an enormous milestone for cross-platform development, and I, for one, cannot wait to see what the developer community is going to do with it.

The Syncfusion [.NET MAUI suite](https://www.syncfusion.com/maui-controls "Syncfusion .NET MAUI controls") offers more than 10 UI controls and libraries to build .NET MAUI applications. Try them out and share your feedback with us.

Syncfusion’s [Xamarin](https://www.syncfusion.com/xamarin-ui-controls "Syncfusion Xamarin UI controls") suite offers over 150 UI controls, from basic editors to powerful, advanced controls like [DataGrid](https://www.syncfusion.com/xamarin-ui-controls/xamarin-datagrid "Xamarin.Forms DataGrid"), [Charts](https://www.syncfusion.com/xamarin-ui-controls/xamarin-charts "Xamarin.Forms Charts"), [ListView](https://www.syncfusion.com/xamarin-ui-controls/xamarin-listview "Xamarin.Forms ListView"), and [Rich Text Editor](https://www.syncfusion.com/xamarin-ui-controls/xamarin-rich-text-editor "Xamarin.Forms Rich Text Editor"). Use them to build elite applications!

Also, you can contact us through our [support forum](https://www.syncfusion.com/forums "Syncfusion support forum"), [support tickets](https://support.syncfusion.com/ "Syncfusion support tickets"), or [feedback portal](https://www.syncfusion.com/feedback/xamarin-forms "Syncfusion Feedback Portal"). We are always happy to assist you!

Thanks for reading!

## Related blogs

- [Create a Hyperlink UI in .NET MAUI Preview 13](https://www.syncfusion.com/blogs/post/create-a-hyperlink-ui-in-net-maui-preview-13.aspx "Create a Hyperlink UI in .NET MAUI Preview 13 blog")
- [5 Important Things to Make Your Cross-Platform (.NET MAUI) App Accessible](https://www.syncfusion.com/blogs/post/5-important-things-to-make-your-cross-platform-net-maui-app-accessible.aspx "5 Important Things to Make Your Cross-Platform (.NET MAUI) App Accessible blog")
- [Syncfusion .NET MAUI Products: Frequently Asked Questions](https://www.syncfusion.com/blogs/post/syncfusion-net-maui-products-frequently-asked-questions.aspx "Syncfusion .NET MAUI Products: Frequently Asked Questions blog")
- [Learn How to Use Dependency Injection in .NET MAUI](https://www.syncfusion.com/blogs/post/learn-how-to-use-dependency-injection-in-net-maui.aspx "Learn How to Use Dependency Injection in .NET MAUI blog")