MobileViews Blog

Category: Pocket PC/Phone Edition

Pocket PC or Pocket PC Phone Edition

  • 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

  • Windows Mobile Office Mobile 6.1 Can Read and Write Office 2007 Files

    After a false start a few months ago, the Office Mobile 6.1 update is finally available. Well, at least it hasn’t been pulled back again so far. You can find information about the upgrade at…

    Microsoft Office Mobile Upgrade

    For the first time it is also possible to purchase a package. You can find this on Handango at…

    Handango Microsoft Office Mobile

    I can already tell this upgrade is going to cause a huge amount of confusion. So, lets try to figure it out here. Let’s start with the statement on the upgrade page that says: Have a Windows Mobile 6 smartphone or Windows Mobile 5.0 touch screen device. See where they say smartphone? Microsoft doesn’t mean the smartphone pretty nearly 100% of the world thinks about: Windows Mobile devices that do not have touch screens (aka Standard Edition). These days Microsoft refers to both the Standard and Professional Editions as smartphone. I’m pretty sure the WiMo6 Classic Edition can be upgraded too. So, Microsoft’s own add copy is probably wrong since their use of the term smartphone does not include the Classic.

    Now, let’s look at the phrase Windows Mobile 5.0 touch screen device. This refers to either a Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC or Pocket PC Phone Editon (Classic or Professional in WiMo6 lingo). Their branding shift has messed up the nomenclature so much that it is even hard to clearly say things clearly in their own explanatory copy. Sigh.

    Now, let’s turn our attention to the for-fee full copy of Office Mobile 6.1 for US$49.95. As far as I can figure, this is unnecessary for the vast majority of Windows Mobile 6 device users/owners. However, manufacturers/carriers had the option to remove various pieces from WiMo6 on their device (Remote Desktop Connection seemed to cause the most outcry). So, if your WiMo6 device does not have Office Mobile on it (perhaps a GPS or some kind of semi-vertical market device), this may be for you. Check carefully though. And, note that this is NOT for a Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone.

    So let’s review what can be upgraded according to Microsoft and what should be able to be upgraded though not explicitly stated in their product copy: Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC Phone Edition, Windows Mobile 6 Standard Edition, and Windows Mobile 6 Professional Edition are all eligible for the upgrade. Presumably, this upgrade should also work for the Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC and Windows Mobile 6 Classic Edition devices too. But, your mileage may vary since this is not explicitly said in the Microsoft text on the subject.

    Finally, what does upgrading Office Mobile 6.1 give you? One single thing (as far as I know): The ability to read and write native Office 2007 files (DOCS, XLSX, PPTX).

    Are we all clear now? Probably not. Sigh.

  • Google Maps Mobile vs. Microsoft Live Search Mobile

    Google Maps Mobile no My Location

    Google and Microsoft both recently released new mobile mapping services: Google Maps Mobile and Microsoft Live Search Mobile. Google Maps seems to respond and refresh the screen faster (compared on the same device using the same network). But, its new My Location feature that tries to figure out your location without a GPS didn’t work for me. I tried it in two locations about 10 miles apart.

    Here’s what surprised me though. I generally use Google Maps when using a desktop or notebook PC. And, I might use Google Maps Mobile if I were actually looking for a specific place for which I already have an address and just need to know where it is located geographically. However, I think the Live Search Categories, Movies, and Gas Prices features invites more exploration to see what’s around as a simple interesting exercise.

    There are  couple of things about Live Search Mobile that irritates me though. The fonts on a Smartphone (I use a Dash) are too small for my aging eyes. They look ok on a Pocket PC with a 640×480 screen though. I also found that characters were disappearing and reappearing for every character I typed when searching over an EDGE connection. It was not as noticeable when using a WiFi connection. The speech recognition is if-fy in noisy environments (I tested that aspect in a Starbucks). It seems to be reasonably good in a perfectly quiet room though (but how often to we have that luxury?).

  • Back to Basics: m. Trumps .mobi

    CNN Mobile

    One of the truly bad recent web-ideas was the so-called dot-mobi (.MOBI) top-level domain that became available just over a year ago in September 2006. Its purpose was to create a top-level domain where mobile friendly sites would live. You can only who came up with the bright idea to force mobile device users to actually type more characters to get to a mobile friendly web site. Truly a duh moment. Fortunately, cooler and smarter heads prevailed and we really don’t talk about dot-mobi anymore. The cooler heads decided to either (1) make their site auto-magically detect if a mobile device is detected and present a mobile friendly view or (2) use the short prefix “m.” for their mobile-specific site. One example is CNN who, in the past, I’ve named as a particularly mobile-unfriendly site. However, they created a mobile friendly site sometime in the past year or so and gave it the URL m.cnn.com (see the screen capture example above).

    In general, these m-dot (m.) sites are viewable on your desktop too. So, you can check on interesting sites from a desktop with a full-sized keyboard before typing the URL on a mobile device’s thumb keyboard.