Wednesday, May 11, 2005
How Unified is Windows Mobile 5.0?
Posted by Peter Foot in "DEVELOPER" @ 09:00 AM
Prior to the release of Windows Mobile 5.0 there were many rumours that there would no longer be two separate platforms (Pocket PC and Smartphone) but a single platform supporting both touchscreen and keypad based devices. In reality the two platforms are still very much separate in this release. There are a number of advances that have been introduced to bring the two platforms closer in line but there are still fundamental differences and two separate SDKs.
Functionality has been added to Smartphone to add features previously missing such as support for installing the SQL Mobile 2005 database engine. Also Smartphone gains application support previously only available on Pocket PC such as the Pictures application.
On the Pocket PC, some changes have been made to the UI to allow it to support softkeys. For new applications if only 2 top level menu items are present these are rendered as large softkeys at the bottom of the screen which will be familiar to Smartphone users. New devices built specifically for Windows Mobile 5.0 will have physical hardware keys to map to these items. The shell itself has improved support for navigating using hardware keys and the direction pad. Visual cues are added to controls to indicate where the current keyboard focus is.
These are interesting changes which will allow hardware manufacturers to produce more innovative device form-factors however the user will still need to be aware of which platform the device uses as software will be specifically built for one or the other. An exception here is that is is possible to write a single application in managed (.NET Compact Framework) code which will run on both platforms if it uses a lowest-common-denominator approach.
Functionality has been added to Smartphone to add features previously missing such as support for installing the SQL Mobile 2005 database engine. Also Smartphone gains application support previously only available on Pocket PC such as the Pictures application.
On the Pocket PC, some changes have been made to the UI to allow it to support softkeys. For new applications if only 2 top level menu items are present these are rendered as large softkeys at the bottom of the screen which will be familiar to Smartphone users. New devices built specifically for Windows Mobile 5.0 will have physical hardware keys to map to these items. The shell itself has improved support for navigating using hardware keys and the direction pad. Visual cues are added to controls to indicate where the current keyboard focus is.
These are interesting changes which will allow hardware manufacturers to produce more innovative device form-factors however the user will still need to be aware of which platform the device uses as software will be specifically built for one or the other. An exception here is that is is possible to write a single application in managed (.NET Compact Framework) code which will run on both platforms if it uses a lowest-common-denominator approach.
