Practice
Application Modernization · Mobile
Application Modernization · Mobile
Xamarin to .NET MAUI.
In days, not months.
Google Play's 16 KB page-size mandate put three of Wonder Cement's business-critical mobile apps on a deadline that end-of-life Xamarin could not meet. Kansoft's AI-assisted migration moved its dealer management, retailer engagement, and architect lead-generation apps to .NET MAUI — roughly 15 days per app, all three at UAT in under four weeks.
15 days · per app 3 apps · migrated < 4 weeks · to UAT
The Client & Context
Three production apps on a retired framework — and a compliance clock Google controls.
Wonder Cement runs three business-critical mobile applications — a business partner & dealer management app, a retailer engagement & scheme app, and an architect & engineer lead generation app — each carrying multiple modules, years of accumulated features, and active user bases across the business.
All three were built on Xamarin, a framework Microsoft retired in May 2024. That was survivable — until Google Play began requiring 16 KB memory page-size support for apps targeting Android 15+. Xamarin's native libraries are compiled with 4 KB alignment, they crash on 16 KB devices, and no Xamarin update is coming to fix it.
Wonder Cement's compatibility assessment confirmed the position: every future Play Store update for all three apps was blocked until they moved off Xamarin. The question was no longer whether to migrate — it was whether the migration could land before the deadline forced an outage.
Key Challenges
Five constraints that made staying on Xamarin impossible.
Not a cost decision, not a velocity decision — a compliance decision, with a live user base attached.
01
The 16 KB mandate
Google Play requires apps targeting Android 15+ to support 16 KB memory page sizes. Xamarin's native libraries are compiled with 4 KB alignment — they crash on 16 KB devices, and no fix is coming.
02
Xamarin is end-of-life
Microsoft ended Xamarin support in May 2024. No security patches, no SDK updates, no new Android or iOS API bindings — an out-of-support runtime surfacing in security reviews.
03
Three large apps, one window
Each app carried multiple modules and years of features. A conventional rewrite was estimated at roughly two months per application — about half a year the release calendar could not absorb.
04
An abandoned plugin ecosystem
The community plugins the apps depended on are no longer maintained. Each OS update risked breaking another dependency with no upstream left to fix it.
05 · Zero tolerance for regression
And all of it against production apps in daily business use.
These were live applications with active user bases — not internal tools that could tolerate a rough release. The migration had to preserve every screen and workflow exactly. Users should notice nothing except that updates keep arriving. That ruled out the from-scratch rewrite most vendors quote, and demanded a conversion approach that could prove parity against the Xamarin baseline, screen by screen.
Our Approach
AI-assisted migration — the mechanical 80% automated, the platform-specific 20% engineered.
Xamarin and MAUI are close cousins, which is exactly why a from-scratch rewrite is the wrong tool. Kansoft combined Microsoft's .NET Upgrade Assistant with AI-assisted code transformation using Claude — with engineers, not tools, accountable for the result.
PHASE 01
16 KB Compatibility Assessment
A per-app report identifying every native library, plugin, and dependency affected by the 16 KB requirement — the precise scope of the problem before committing to a plan.
PHASE 02
Migration Blueprint
The target MAUI architecture per app: single-project structure, custom renderer → handler mapping, and a vetted MAUI-compatible replacement for every unmaintained plugin.
PHASE 03
AI-Assisted Transformation
.NET Upgrade Assistant plus Claude-based conversion moved namespaces, APIs, renderers, and resources in bulk. Engineers reviewed output and resolved platform-specific edge cases.
PHASE 04
Sequenced Delivery & Validation
Patterns learned on app one accelerated apps two and three. Screen-by-screen parity against the Xamarin baseline, a 16 KB device matrix, and store-compliance checks before each UAT handover.
Solution Delivered
What we delivered — three apps, one migration engine.
The dealer management, retailer engagement, and architect lead-generation apps rebuilt on .NET MAUI with screens, workflows, and business logic carried over intact — plus the compliance verification and project modernisation that make the next five years of releases routine.
All Three Business Apps on .NET MAUI
All three applications re-platformed to .NET MAUI on a current .NET release. No feature dropped, no screen rebuilt from scratch — users see the same app, running on a supported framework.
Custom Renderers → MAUI Handlers
The part teams fear most. Renderer patterns converted to MAUI's handler architecture through pattern-based transformation, with engineer review on the platform-specific edge cases.
Plugin Replacement Matrix
Unmaintained Xamarin plugins mapped to MAUI Community Toolkit, built-in MAUI APIs, or vetted maintained alternatives — each swap validated for behaviour parity.
16 KB & Target-SDK Compliance
Every app now meets Google's 16 KB page-size requirement and current target-SDK rules, verified per build across a physical device matrix — not checked once at the end.
Single-Project Structure
MAUI's single-project format replaced the multi-project Xamarin solutions — less scaffolding, faster builds, simpler dependency management, and a cleaner path for future enhancements.
Parity-Validated UAT Handover
Feature parity walked through screen by screen against the Xamarin baseline before each handover — evidence, not assurance, that nothing regressed on the way to a supported runtime.
Migration Pipeline
Technology Stack
A stack chosen to preserve the codebase, not replace it.
Every choice maps to the same constraint — carry the business logic forward intact, restore store compliance, and put the apps back on a supported release cadence.
.NET MAUI
Xamarin's supported successor — single project, handler architecture, 16 KB ready
C# & XAML
View models, pages & business logic carried over — not rewritten
.NET Upgrade Assistant
Microsoft's tooling for project restructuring & bulk namespace migration
Claude AI-assisted conversion
Renderer → handler translation, API mapping & plugin remediation at scale
MVVM preserved
Existing architecture & patterns retained — familiar to the team that maintains it
Android · 16 KB compliant
Verified per build across a physical device matrix & Play Store rules
Measured Outcomes
From a blocked release pipeline to a platform with a future.
Six things changed between the Xamarin portfolio and the .NET MAUI apps in UAT four weeks later.
15 days
Per-app migration
Against a ~2-month conventional estimate per app
< 4 wks
All three apps at UAT
Sequenced delivery — no big-bang cutover
100%
Store compliance restored
16 KB page-size + current target SDK, verified per build
Zero
Screens rebuilt from scratch
Same screens, same workflows — supported platform
| Metric | Before — Xamarin | After — .NET MAUI |
|---|---|---|
| Per-app migration effort | ~2 months (conventional estimate) | ~15 days delivered |
| Portfolio timeline | ~6 months projected | All 3 apps at UAT in under 4 weeks |
| 16 KB page-size compliance | Impossible on Xamarin | Compliant, verified per build |
| Runtime support | End-of-life (May 2024) | Supported .NET release cadence |
| Play Store updates | Blocked at the next SDK ratchet | Unblocked |
| Plugin ecosystem | Unmaintained dependencies | Maintained MAUI-compatible replacements |
What Changed for the Business
Beyond compliance — four ways the migration compounded.
The deadline forced the move. What Wonder Cement gained was a mobile portfolio with a supported future — and a delivery model that turned a half-year programme into a four-week sprint.
Release pipeline unblocked
Updates, fixes, and new features reach the Play Store again — before the compliance deadline forced an outage on three live user bases.
A supported runtime again
Annual .NET releases, active security patching, and day-one support for new Android APIs — the gap between the apps and the platform they run on stopped widening.
Future scalability unlocked
The MAUI codebase removes Xamarin's ceiling. New capabilities, new integrations, and new targets extend from the same single-project codebase as the business requires.
Zero user disruption
Screen-by-screen parity meant users saw the same apps throughout. No retraining, no support spike, no broken release — the migration was invisible where it should be.
Engagement Snapshot
How the work was shaped.
Approach
.NET Upgrade Assistant · Claude AI-assisted
Platform
.NET MAUI · C# · Android
Timeline
3 apps · ~15 days each · UAT < 4 weeks
Why Kansoft
The capability mix this engagement required.
Migrating renderer-heavy, plugin-dependent production apps on a compliance deadline is a specific kind of hard. It needs .NET depth, AI-assisted delivery discipline, and a partner the client already trusts.
Proven Wonder Cement partnership Kansoft's third major delivery for Wonder Cement, after the in-plant logistics platform and the reverse auction system. Familiarity with the client's environment removed weeks of ramp-up.
.NET & mobile depth Engineers who know both Xamarin's renderer model and MAUI's handler architecture — the difference between converting a pattern and debugging one for a month.
AI as method, not marketing AI tooling embedded directly in the migration workflow — compressing each app from an estimated two months to roughly 15 days, with engineers accountable for every line of output.
Deadline discipline With store compliance at stake, the timeline was the requirement. Sequenced delivery put all three apps in UAT in under four weeks — validated, not rushed.
Facing the same deadline?
If your Xamarin apps are on Google's 16 KB clock, the next call is the one worth having.
Share your Xamarin application or portfolio with our team. We'll return a per-app 16 KB compatibility report, plugin risk inventory, and a day-level migration timeline — within 48 hours.
Confidential · No procurement obligation · Response within one business day