What is the difference between html5 and xamarin?

Question

I'm a C# .NET developer.

I want to develop mobile apps that can run on iphone, android, and windows phone.

As far as now, I found that www.xamarin.com provides a solution that can develop iphone and android using C#.

What is the difference between html5 and xamarin?

Which technology should I use that I can develop once and run on all platform?

Answer 1

The main difference is that HTML5 works on a browser and xamarin does not (for as far as I researched it). With HTML5 it is easier to develop on multiple devices. But xamarin who makes native apps, can access native functions on your device (like notifications and so on). But the downside is that xamarin is a bit harder to make it work on multiple devices. Also a native app has to be installed, a HTML5 app does not. So what you should be asking yourself is, what kind of app do I want to make. Furthermore something as an app that runs on all platforms does not exist yet. Some HTML5 frameworks offer a large support (like JQmobile) but all platforms is nearly impossible.