Unlock the Power of Xamarin: Manage Phone Calls and SMS with Ease

In today’s mobile-first world, providing a seamless user experience is crucial for any application. One way to achieve this is by integrating phone calls and SMS interactions within your app, allowing users to remain engaged without exiting the application. Xamarin.Essentials makes this possible with its cross-platform developer API.

What is Xamarin.Essentials?

Xamarin.Essentials offers a range of functionalities, including SMS, accelerometer, phone dialer, preferences, and many others, allowing developers to create robust mobile applications across Android, iOS, and UWP platforms.

Setting Up Xamarin.Essentials

Before diving into the implementation, it’s essential to ensure you have the correct platform settings. For Android, a minimum version of 4.4 (API level 19) is required, with a target Android version of 9.0 or 10.0 (API level 28 and 29). If you’re using an older version, verify your implementation in the docs.

Configuring Platform Settings

In some cases, additional setup is required for each platform. For Android, you’ll need to add specific code to the MainActivity.xml file. Follow these steps:

1. Open the MainActivity.xml file from your Android project
2. Add the required code inside the manifest node:

<manifest...>
  <application...>
   ...
  </application>
</manifest>

Making Phone Calls with Xamarin.Essentials

The PhoneDialer class allows you to open the phone number dialer, formatting the telephone number based on its country of origin. To implement, follow these steps:

1. Create a method for calls that receives the telephone number parameter:

public async Task MakeCall(string phoneNumber)
{
 ...
}

2. Add the PhoneDialer class to open the numeric keyboard:
3. Use the Open method to display the telephone number:

await PhoneDialer.Open(phoneNumber);

Sending SMS with Xamarin.Essentials

The SMS class enables you to open the message board through the ComposeAsync method, which receives a SmsMessage value as a parameter. To implement, follow these steps:

1. Create a method to send SMS, receiving the parameters of the SMS text and recipients:

public async Task SendSms(string message, string recipient)
{
 ...
}

2. Add the Sms class to open the message board with the desired text:
3. Use the ComposeAsync method to present the message:

var smsMessage = new SmsMessage(message, new[] { recipient });
await Sms.ComposeAsync(smsMessage);