Kivanc Ozuolmez

This series of Web seminars will lead you through common application development scenarios in Windows Mobile 6.5. From “hello world” to embedded databases, from sending a simple SMS messages to using the new touch-screen enabled Gesture APIs, these sessions will get you started developing custom applications for your Windows Mobile 6.5 device.

 

Link is here

 

Just posted to MSDN Downloads is a brand new SDK for doing Windows Mobile development. The SDK is coupled with new emulator image downloads for the following languages GER, FRA, ITA, JPN, CHS and ESP. The download link is :  Windows Mobile 6.5 SDK Download page.

 

Edit on 25.Jan.2010 : SDK Download is pulled back by MS, with an explanation "SDK download has been temporarily pulled to address the necessary issues."

Couple of days ago Alex Yakhnin posted a nice brain storming article on RIAs and Mobile Devices, here. If you think about the Silverlight functionalities we have now and having them on a limited mobiel device....

That's explains a lot why we still don't know anything about Silverlight on mobile.

Well that should be the Microsoft chant with the simultaneous release of Windows Mobile 6.5, Marketplace and a host of complementary applications such as an updated MyPhone that’s available for download via Marketplace. If you’re like me, one of the cool new “premium” features of MyPhone is the ability find your lost phone.  Here I’m showing the “known location” feature but you can get MyPhone to ring your phone, even if it’s on vibrate.  I so want that feature for when I lose my phone.

 

 

 

I'm quite late to announce the paper here, but two mobile MVPs, Michele Leroux Bustamante and Nickolas Landry, did an excellent job talking about using WCF from the .NET Compact Framework: http://wcfguidanceformobile.codeplex.com/ . If you wonder the capabilities and the usage of WCF services on Windows Mobile, please pay attention to this whitepaper.

One of the things that continually frustrates me about building Windows Mobile applications in Visual Studio is that for some reason it takes so long to do a build. Behind the scenes there is a lot that goes on and I always forget that there is one part of the build that you can mostly do without, the platform verification.  As pointed out by the now quite old post by the Visual Studio for Devices team you can disable this part of the build quite easily:

1) Open the file %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Microsoft.CompactFramework.Common.Targets for editing.
2) Go to the line which reads:
Name="PlatformVerificationTask">
and change it to:
Name="PlatformVerificationTask" Condition="'$(SkipPlatformVerification)' != 'true'">
3) Add the SkipPlatformVerification environment variable to the system and set it to "true" (To re-enable Platform Verification set the environment variable to "false")
4) Restart Visual Studio for the changes to take effect (If building from the command line using MSBuild, add /p:SkipPlatformVerification=true to your command line to turn off the task. You can specify the variable in the project file also, so that this information is persisted across sessions).

As noted by Thomas you may just want to disable this functionality, instead of having it contingent on an environment variable.  In this case just change the PlatformVerificationTask line to: Name="PlatformVerificationTask" Condition="false">

Doing this you should notice that your mobile projects build just as fast as other projects within Visual Studio.  Note: This is still relevant in Visual Studio 2008 with SP1.

For any queries, questions, thoughts, feedback on the Marketplace

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/mktplace/threads

Frank posted about this a few weeks ago now but I didn’t want to repost it until I’d had a chance to use the new Spb Mobile Shell 3.0. If you’ve ever felt that the Windows Mobile interface is tired and stayed then this product will give your device a new lease of life.

 

Unlike some of the other interfaces that OEMs such as HTC have been working on, Spb Mobile Shell doesn’t seem to completely drain the system resources.  It works nicely on Windows Mobile 6, 6.1 and 6.5 from what I’ve seen and means that just about everything you want to do is just a few clicks or slides away.  At $29.95 this is a must!

 

After a long silence on my blog, I've great news :

    Microsoft's beta My Phone service for Windows Mobile now free to all http://myphone.microsoft.com/  And for more info about My Phone, please refer to my previous blog entry Microsoft launches new mobile phone stack

Have fun

Windows Mobile 6.5 is done and that’s a good opportunity to provide a quick jump-start to developers wishing to learn more about the OS.

Microsoft has a tendency to overload developers with abundant API of its various platforms and technologies. Windows Mobile is no different. Managed and native API, .Net, MFC, ATL, Win32… it’s all there for the confused developer. Luckily, Microsoft has recently published an article discussing APIs for Windows Mobile 6 and later, and how to select the best fit for your application needs. BTW, don’t be tempted to choose managed .Net API before fully understanding the functional requirements from your application and the devices it needs to run on. Win32 is better if you wish the application to run on as many devices as possible. 

A good place to learn Windows Mobile development is MSDN’s ramp up which is a community-based learning program, teaching various aspects in development for WM. Another excellent source for learning and help is blogs of mobile gurus. I recommend subscribing to the following blogs: Raffaele Limosaniblog, Alex Yakhnin, Christopher Fairbairn, Windows Mobile team blog, Reed and Steve blog, the Moth, and finally, Chris Craft (especially his 30 days of .Net series).

OK. You’ve done your reading and fill ready to start developing? hold on. Make sure you took into account globalization and localization issues. Simon Judge lists many of them.

Once done development, you need to QA your application. If your application aims for numerous devices in many countries, involving different networks, you should consider using DeviceAnywhere or maybe even Mob4Hire.

Finished the cycle? congratulation! Now you can go and publish your application on Windows Marketplace.

Download Cab File

Easy to type mobile URL:

http://tinyurl.com/wmfbcab

New from Windows Mobile: a Facebook application for your phone! Download the new Facebook application for Windows Mobile and:

• Send messages to any of the people in your Friends list.
• Take pictures and videos on your phone, then upload them right to Facebook.
• Send messages or call people in your Friends list.
• Manage your profile and post anytime, anywhere.

Keep up with the latest news and posts with Facebook on your phone. Now your status updates can be up-to-the moment accounts of what you’re doing. Photos and videos are about as close to live-action as you can get. Show your friends what you’re up to, while you’re out and about.
Connecting and sharing on Facebook just got a lot livelier!

Chris Tacke shows in his blogpost, how to create a Screen Capture with less than 10 lines of code. Without any P/Invoke or any more hacking, it just uses managed code. Really and very simple, thanks Chris.

In a keynote at this week's Mobile World Congress, CEO Steve Ballmer unveiled an interim upgrade to Microsoft's mobile phone stack. To ship during the latter half of the year, Windows Mobile 6.5 brings support for two online services, including an app store and a data sync/backup service.

In the announcement, Microsoft emphasized that the new 6.5 stack uses the same tools, and has the same API (application programming interface), facilitating forward compatibility. Additionally, the tools used to develop apps for Windows Mobile 6.5 are the same as those used to write PC apps, Microsoft said, citing Visual Studio, .Net, and SQL.

Microsoft's two new services, unsurprisingly, include:

• "My Phone," a Web-based sync service for text messages, photos, video, and contacts
  • Password-protected web interface
  • Facilitates upgrading phones without data loss
  • "Automatic" syncing and backup
  • Currently available in a limited invitation-only beta
• Windows Marketplace for Mobile
  • Search, browse, and buy apps and widgets, from a PC (Windows Live ID required)
  • Direct-to-phone installations
  • Applications qualified by "simple" security and compatibility check from Microsoft

Additional touted new features in Windows Mobile 6.5 include:

• New home screen "dashboard" showing new e-mails, texts, missed calls, and calendar appointments
• More finger-friendly touch-screen interface
• Updated Internet Explorer Mobile browser

First Windows Mobile 6.5 phones

Participating in the launch were Microsoft phone partners HTC and LG. Both pre-announced specific phone models slated to ship with the 6.5 upgrade in the second half of the year:

• LG said its LG-GM7300 -- available first on Windows Mobile 6.1 -- will gain a 6.5 option
• HTC flagged its Touch Diamond 2 and Touch Pro 2 as its first Windows Mobile 6.5 models

 

Slated for WM 6.5, in version "2" releases next year
(HTC Diamond Touch, Touch Pro. Click either for details)

Additional news may be about available on Microsoft's MWC partner list [.doc format], the company said.

Other announcements

Besides the big news related to Windows Mobile 6.5 and its associated services, Microsoft announced several other items. It touted a voice search technology called Recite, for Windows Mobile 6.0 or better. Currently available as a free preview, here, the technology lets users search for spoken notes and reminders using just their voice, Microsoft said.

Additionally, Microsoft announced a long list of new mobile advertising partners, including:

• Mobistar (Orange Group) and BASE, the second and the third largest mobile operators in Belgium respectively
• Mobile travel site WAYN
• eFinancialNews and Private Equity News, part of Dow Jones
• Le Parisien.fr, the mobile site of Le Parisien-Aujourd’hui en France, described as the "first" daily newspaper in France
• La Vanguardia, a Spanish daily newspaper
• Spanish sports newspaper El Mundo Deportivo
• Le Post.fr, an interactive French mobile site

Microsoft said it offers advertising services in a dozen countries, delivering mobile ads on both Microsoft and partner properties.

Finally, Microsoft partners also announced mobile broadband connectivity for Windows 7, Microsoft's netbook-friendly OS, currently beta-testing. Such partners reportedly included Acer, Asus, Birdstep Technology, Dell, Ericsson, HP, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, Huawei Communications Technologies, Option, Qualcomm, Sierra Wireless, Smith Micro, T-Mobile International, and ZTE.

In a statement, Ballmer commented, "Windows phones bring together the best of the Web, the PC, and the phone.”

I heard many complains about slow startups of mobile applications and also got questions how to increase the startup performance. In most of the projects, the problem was a design issue, just like trying to connect a remote server on startup or populating big datasets etc.. But on the other hand, if you think your startup sequance is totaly clear and correct than you may find some more things to do in general.

Take a look at the article on how to optimize the your application's loading time.
http://blogs.msdn.com/raffael/archive/2009/01/05/netcf-improve-startup-performances.aspx

The Microsoft Patterns & Practices (p&p) team delivers applied engineering guidance that helps software architects, developers, and their teams take full advantage of Microsoft’s platform technologies in their custom application development efforts. Working with the Windows Mobile team the p&p team has updated their Mobile Architecture Pocket Guide, which provides real world information and best practices for mobile development. Definitely worth taking the time to give it a read.

Giorgio Sardo has an excellent post about tutorial on Building Graphically Advanced Applications with .NET Compact Framework 3.5.   He also has a link in his post to the source (bonus!).  Check it out.  

The article itself (linked in his post) is at: http://expression.microsoft.com/en-us/dd279543.aspx

There was a discussion recently with my fellow MVPs and you can use C# 3.0 language features in a CF 2.0 app with VS 2008 and even extension methods with a small hack.

Simply create an ExtensionAttribute class:

using System.Runtime.CompilerServices
{
public class ExtensionAttribute : Attribute{}
}

Then you need to declare this attribute on each extension method in order to implement extension methods. This is because extension methods require the new ExtensionAttribute class introduced in System.Core.dll in .NET 3.5.

Daniel Moth has talked about this in depth here.

Do you have questions regarding Windows Mobile application development that you need answers to?

Spend an hour with Microsoft employees and MVPs who are experts in Windows Mobile application development.

Join us for a live chat and bring on the questions!

This chat will cover your questions about the tools and technologies used to develop both native and managed applications using the Windows Mobile operating system.

Find our Events on the MSDN Chat calendar here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/chats/default.aspx

Are you on Facebook? Do you use Outlook and Windows Mobile? If you answered yes and yes, get OutSync, a free app to sync your Facebook friends' photos with Outlook! It's written by Mel Sampat on the Windows Mobile team, and is free to use. Watch the 7 minute video on Channel 10, or visit Mel's website to download it.

Today I’m applying Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (Installer)

and

Microsoft SQL Server Compact 3.5 Service Pack 1 for Windows Mobile

SQL Server Compact 3.5 Service Pack 1 for Windows Mobile is not included in VS 2008 SP1, but it looks like SQL CE 3.5 SP1 for the desktop is included.

I think there is going to be a lot of confusion about this, if you look carefully at the screen grab on the left, you can see the dialog only mentions SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 – there’s no desktop or devices distinction.

 

 

Why update to SQL Compact Edition 3.5 SP1?

I’m doing it solely for the new Transact SQL support for:

• Nested query in FROM clause
• CROSS APPLY and OUTER APPLY
• CAST
• TOP
• SET IDENTITY INSERT

Here are the 3.5 SP1 release notes with information about the other SP1 enhancements/fixes.

Other important SQL Server Compact Edition URLs

• Microsoft SQL Server Compact 3.5 Server Tools
• Microsoft SQL Server Compact 3.5 Service Pack 1 Books Online and Samples
• Description of the various build versions of SQL Server Compact Edition – doesn’t show beta versions
• SQL Server Compact Release Versions – does show beta versions

Microsoft has announced a free tool for Windows Mobile programmers that can take stock of what resources applications are using. The "Windows Mobile API Usage Tool" performs static analysis of selected binaries, then reports on their usage of APIs (application programming interfaces) and other resources, the company says.

As a new posting on Microsoft's Windows Mobile Team blog notes, some APIs in Windows Mobile have been deprecated and may not be present in future versions of the operating system. Therefore, it's important to be aware of all the APIs an application is using.

The Windows Mobile API Usage Tool is designed to run on desktop computers running Windows Vista or XP, and requires Visual Studio 2005 or 2008. It is a command-line utility that allows selecting either a Windows Mobile application (in .CAB or .MSI format), or a directory containing multiple applications, as input. It will examine the selected code, then create a report listing its system dependences, optionally including any deprecated APIs, says Microsoft.

The tool saves its output in a SQL Compact Edition database (.SDF) file, and is said to be capable of creating a collection of useful reports. The Windows Mobile Team is encouraging developers to examine their applications with the tool, then send in copies of its reports to the company. This will aid in planning the future evolution of Windows Mobile, according to Microsoft.

To read the Windows Mobile Team's posting about the Windows Mobile API Usage Tool, see its blog, here. To obtain further background and download the tool, go to the Microsoft website, here.

Via its Internet Sharing application, Windows Mobile allows sharing a phone's internet connection with a laptop via a USB cable or Bluetooth. WiFi is not supported, but that omission has now been corrected via WMWifiRouter, a free application by programmer Jorrit Jongma.

Being able to use WiFi instead of Bluetooth is desirable for those with 3.6 or 7.2 Mbps HSDPA connections, since these outpace the former's 2 Mbit data rate. But, as this FAQon the XDA-Developers Web forum explains, Internet Sharing was not designed to use WiFi and has been able to do so only if users installed a hacked version of the relevant DLL (dynamic link library).

Windows Mobile's Internet Sharing

WMWifiRouter application

The WMWifiRouter application, though only scantily documented on the above website, corrects this problem by allowing an ad hoc WiFi network to be set up between a laptop and the phone supplying the wide area connection. Available for free, it requires Windows Mobile 5 AKU 3 or Windows Mobile 6.

To download WMWifiRouter, visit here. For more information on Windows Mobile's Internet Sharing capability -- termed its "most underutilized/unknown feature" by Microsoft's Enterprise Mobile Solution Specialist Jason Langridge -- see Langridge's blog,here.