Microsoft windows Mobile SDK 6.0 target devices?

Question

Hi,

I am a c# devoloper and new to windows mobile Devolopment.

Now I have to develop an application on Windows mobile 6.0 sdk.So I am learning this from Microsoft’s site.

Now my doubt is..

a) what all the commercial mobile devices supports an application developed in windows mobile sdk? or what are the real devices where mobile applications targeted?

c) Suppose if I want to test my application in a cell phone device which cell phone should i chose? Is that true that i can only use smart phones (blckberry,Nokia E71 etc).

d) How do i find out from the device configuration ,that whether this device supports windows mobile applications?

e) Does mobile applications runs only in devices which has windows operating system?

If i am not in the right track please suggest ? and please suggest some articles and web casts which throws more information’s on this topic?

Thanks

SNA

Answer 1

A) With the Windows Mobile 6.0 SDK, you can target Windows Mobile devices obviously, there are two main categories: Windows Mobile Professional (Formerly known as Pocket PC) and Windows Mobile Standard (Formerly know as Smartphone). The main difference is that Professional supports touch screens and standard does not, but you can run the same binary on both and the distinction is going away in the future.

C) (you skipped b) if you are using the Windows Mobile SDK, you need a windows mobile device like the T-Mobile Wing (Professional) or the T-Mobile Dash (Standard)

D) all Windows Mobile devices are advertised as such, if the device says it runs Windows Mobile you will be ok.

e) No, you can also develop for Symbian (Nokia & Sony Erickson), Backberry, iPhone and Android among others. iPhone and Android are very popular at the moment, if you are just starting I would suggest Android, you can get the T-Mobile G1 or the Google ADP1 (same hardware) and the development tools are free (eclipse + Java SDK + Android SDK).

Update:

To clarify on e)

You need different tools/devices for each platform you are targeting, for example:

1) For Windows Mobile you need a Windows Mobile Device (i.e. T-Mobile Dash or T-Mobile Wing), a Windows Desktop and Visual Studio. 2) For Android you need an Android Device (i.e. T-Mobile G1 or Google ADP1), one of the following desktops (Windows, Linux or Mac), Eclipse (a free download) and the Android SDK (another free download). 3) For iPhone you need an iPhone and Mac desktop, you can download the SDK from Apples web site.

Symbian and blackberry would be similar, you need separate devices and tools for developing for them.

Update #2: Most of the mentioned platforms and SDKs support some sort of emulation so that you can develop without a physical device, however I don't recommend going that route but for the simplest of applications as in my experience, the variations with real life devices are big enough as to warrant extra testing on your target device anyway.

Update #3: One more thing, if you want to remain using C# only, then your only option is Windows Mobile as that's the only platform with support for that language. for the iPhone you will need to learn Objective C, for BlackBerry and Android you need Java, and for Symbian you can do C++ and Java.

Answer 2

a. You can find a list of available devices here. These are the ones available in US and the ones currently available. Of course there are some old phones that uses WM as its OS.

c. You can use any Windows Mobile device. Basically there will be two distinctions. 1. Touch screen (pocketpc/professional) and non-touch screen(smartphone/standard) devices. 2. OS version. Most of the phones available today are WM 6.x but still there are 5.0 devices. (e.g. Samsung BlackJack -> 5.0, Blackjack II -> 6.0, Epix -> 6.1)

d. Look at the box, if it mentions Windows Mobile or not. Or, if it connects to your PC using ActiveSync it is WM.

e. No. Franklin Munoz's answer clarifies this well enough.