Windows Mobile is a powerful platform that enables developers to create varied applications to enhance user experience. Having Windows CE 5.0 as its basis, Windows Mobile packs in many features that include shell and communications functionalities. Creating Windows Mobile applications can be surprisingly easy - in fact, almost as easy as creating desktop apps.
What you will need
You will need the following to start creating your mobile app:
- Visual Studio 2005 or 2008: This nifty program allows you to create, author, debug and present your application, all from one single platform. The interface is easy to understand and use as well.
- Windows Mobile SDK: This useful tool contains the API header and library files that are vital to access the Windows Mobile functionality. It also gives you sample apps, debug emulators and documentation.
- ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center: Active Sync and Windows Mobile Device Center help in deploying applications to an emulator or device. While Windows XP works with Active Sync, Windows Vista comes with the Windows Mobile Device Center.
Tools you can use to write data on Windows Mobile
Visual Studio offers you all the tools necessary to build apps in native code, managed code or a combination of these two languages. Let us now look at the tools you can use to write data for creating Windows Mobile apps.
Native Code, that is, Visual C++ - gives you direct hardware access and high performance, with a small footprint. This is written in the "native" language used by the computer that it runs on and is directly executed by the processor.
Native code can only be used to run unmanaged applications - all data must be recompiled in case you move on to another OS.
Managed code, that is, Visual C# or Visual Basic .NET - can be used to create varied user-interface type of applications and gives the developer access to Web data and services by making use of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition.
This approach solves many coding problems inherent in C++, while also managing memory, emulation and debugging, which are most essential to write more advanced, complicated apps that target business enterprise software and solutions.
ASP.NET can be written using Visual Studio .NET, C# and J#. ASP.NET Mobile Controls is effective for use on several devices using a single code set, as also if you need a guaranteed data bandwidth for your device.
While ASP.NET helps you target a variety of devices, the disadvantage is that it will work only when the client device is connected to the server. Hence, this is not suitable for collecting client data to later synchronize it with the server or for applications that directly use the device for handling data.
Google Data APIs help developers access and manage all data related to Google services. Since these are based on standard protocols like HTTP and XML, coders can easily create and build apps for the Windows Mobile platform.
