MobileViews Blog

Category: Windows Mobile

Microsoft Windows Mobile Pocket PC, Pocket PC Phone Edition, and Smartphone

  • Back to Basics: Is Turning ClearType On Actually Useful?

    Windows Mobile ClearType

    It was, I believe, at the 1997 Fall Comdex that I first saw Bill Gates announce ClearType technology for notebook LCD displays. The ClearType anti-aliasing technique’s purpose was to render easier to read text on LCD displays. I looked down at my HP 320LX and wondered if we would ever see this technology trickle down to the Windows CE Handheld PC (which had just emerged at the previous 1996 Fall Comdex). It took a few years, but we eventually saw it become available for the Pocket PC (but not the Smartphone). After it became available, I regularly turned it on for each new Pocket PC. After a while (a year or two perhaps), it began to dawn on me that text on the Pocket PC screen might actually be easier for me to read with ClearType turned off.

    I’ve tried toggling the ClearType setting on a number of Pocket PCs over the years. And, in general, I’ve been leaving the option unchecked (turned off). My non-expert guess is that as I became older and Presbyopia (a reasonably normal part of aging) set in, a kind of natural anti-aliasing was created by my visual system. So, turning on ClearType just resulted in fuzzy looking font that was harder to read than a font with aliasing.

    This probably varies greatly from person to person. So, you might want to test using your Pocket PC with ClearType turned off and on a couple of times to figure out which setting looks best to your eyes.

  • Morning Sky Capture by an HTC Advantage

    advantage20071210.jpg

    I recall reading somewhere that many (most?) people consider photos taken with cameraphones to be throw away items. I don’t happen to one of those people. I stepped out to head to work this morning and wanted to take a photo of the sky. I didn’t have a real camera. But, I did have an HTC Advantage with a 3 megapixel resolution. So, I snapped a couple of photos. The one above was resized to 320×240 but otherwise not modified. Glad I had the Advantage with me to capture the sky this morning.

    The photo below was taken 10 years ago with my first digital camera: A Kodak DC20. This image is also not modified. In fact, it is not even resized. The photo below is the full resolution of that 10 year old camera: 493×373. Weird resolution, eh? One thing that struck me though is that comparing the sub-megapixel photos I took 10 years ago with the DC20 has better depth of field than any of my current cameraphones. And, the images from the DC20 seem, in general, to be sharper and have greater contrast than any of my cameraphones.

    So, we still have a way to go before most of the current generation cameraphones catch up to 1997 digital cameras. But, cameraphone photos are still better than none at all.

    Photo from a 1997 Kodak DC20 digital camera

  • Download Google Spreadsheet to Windows Mobile

    Google Spreadsheet Excel Export

    I only noticed this Google Spreadsheet feature today. But, it may have been available for a while. If you use a Windows Mobile Pocket PC or Smartphone with Google Spreadsheet, it gives you the option to download an Excel XLS file. This worked fine for me. The XLS spreadsheet opened up in Excel Mobile right after the download finished.

    This is a great feature for me. It means that I can frequently used spreadsheets in Google Docs and download them to a Pocket PC or Smartphone when I want to work with them offline. Unfortunately, you cannot email the spreadsheet back to Google Docs as you can with text documents. I’ll guess this feature will appear someday though.

  • Back to Basics: What Apps Run on Windows Mobile? Part II

    Windows Mobile devices are not limited to the native or managed (.NET Compact Framework) code for applications.

    Although Microsoft does not provide a Java runtime, many manufacturers add a Java Midlet Manager to their WiMo products. You’ll need this if you want to use products such as the Operamini browser or some (but not all) of Google’s WiMo products.

    There are also a few programming languages that actually allow you to develop on a WiMo device itself. NS Basic/CE is one that comes to mind since I actually first tried it on my old Apple Newton Messagepad. It lets you create applications using the BASIC programming language. The “CE” part of its name comes from “Windows CE”. I’ve heard about ports of Open Source programming languages such as Python and Ruby for Windows Mobile. But, I have not tried them myself (though I used to write in Python a lot on Linux boxes before I switched to Ruby).

    Some 3rd part Windows Mobile database applications let you create what amounts to an application (from my point of view) with screen forms generator to build graphical interfaces to the database. Syware Visual CE and HanDBase are two database products that I’ve tried and enjoyed using in the past.

    I’m sure I neglected to mention a few things like an add-on scripting/macro tool or an application with built-in scripting. Please let me know if you have recommendations for other products that provide application or app-like building capabilities for Windows Mobile.

  • Back to Basics: What Apps Run on Windows Mobile? Part I

    You might think this a trick question. How could figuring out what applications run on a Windows Mobile device be difficult? You run Windows Mobile software on Windows Mobile devices, right? Kind of…

    There’s a number of factors that makes answering this question a bit more difficult than it ought to be. First, there’s the Professional vs. Classic vs. Standard Editions (aka Pocket PC Phone Edition, Pocket PC, Smartphone). Software designed to run on a touch screen device (Pocket PC) might not work well or at all on a non-touch screen (Smartphone).

    Second, the basic graphical user interface (GUI) for the Pocket PC line changed dramatically starting with Windows Mobile 5. That’s when Microsoft took away the bottom area to use it for the two giant (relatively speaking) soft keys to match the Smartphone UI. This bottom area of the Pocket PC screen was used for menus prior to WiMo 5.

    Third, you might run into legacy software designed for older Windows Mobile/Windows CE devices such as the Handheld PC, Palm-size PC and old Pocket PC veresions. For many years, Windows CE devices used multiple processor architectures. If you see applications that have versions for the SH3 and ARM processors, you are probably looking at very old software. There is, however, a decent change that old ARM based applications might run on your current generation Pocket PC. However, it may look odd or not run 100% correctly.

    Fourth, and this might surprise you, Microsoft actually drops features with each succeeding WiMo generation. For example, the current WiMo 6 does not have a way to use ActiveSync or WMDC to sync and transform Access databases from the original MDB format to CDB. This means that older database applications that depended on this transformation feature won’t work.

    Fifth, different generations of devices had different or no support for the .NET Compact Framework. So, .NET CF based applications won’t work on those older devices.

    Sixth, there are other kinds of applications besides native and .NET CF apps such as Java. Stay tuned for Part II of this discussion about running applications on a Windows Mobile device.

  • An Actual Mobi Site: ESPN.mobi

    ESPN.mobi

    Ok, despite my comment a while back that there aren’t any dot-mobi sites, I guess there are a few. Here’s one you might find useful as holiday basketball tournaments and college bowl games approach.

    ESPN.mobi