Should I make my mobile application for Mobile 6 or Moible 5?

Question

Hi

I am going to be making a small application very soon. I am wondering would it be better to go and make it for 6.0 or should I make it for 5.0?

I don't know much about both versions but I guessing that 5.0 would allow my software to be installed on more phones as opposed to using 6.0 what would work only one 6.0 phones.

I am not sure what kind of advantages 6.0 would bring to me. Like I said it will be a small application that has a couple forms that will post to a webserver.

But of course in the future it could be bigger.

Edit

@ Adam Davis

Hmm you bring up some good points. So I am going to go through them all so you know where I am coming from.

First you bring up a good point about lingering contracts. My app will be targeted at students. Do you think they are more likely to go to the newest technology?

Second you mention some sort of store. Does Microsoft have this store in place? Do you have to pay? I am planning to give this application for free.

I have a website and on my website you can "save" stuff and keep track of stuff. So I thought it would be cool that if I made a application on windows mobile(the reason windows mobile first is because I am taking a windows mobile class and I will be able to use this as my project while working on my own personal stuff).

So my application will have a login screen. They will login and I determine what plan they are one(I have 2 paid plans and one free plan so the application is free but limited to there plan). They will then see a form with textboxes and they can fill it out and save it.

So once they hit save I thinking it will connect to a webserver and do all the necessary stuff. Now when they log into my website they will be able to see the stuff they added.

So now if they don't have a computer near by so they can "save" stuff they can use their phone.

Of course it might grow in the very near future to new features. So thats why I am not sure if it is good to go for 6.0 since maybe I don't need features now but in the future I might.

@ Developer Art

I assumed that if you made a 5.0 mobile application it would run no problem on stuff on higher versions. Is this a wrong assumption?

@ Murph

Yes ideally I would love to make it for both but that will be alot of work because I want to make this application(if this one turns out) one day for Android, J2me and blackberry

So I would the application for download on my site but having it a sort of apple store would be also good since it would increase exporse to my site.

Answer 1

Depends on what tools you're planning on using and what your target "market" is - WM6.0 has been available for fairly a long time (in mobile phone terms) so its a fairly safe option.

Ideally, yes, cover WM5.0 as well as WM6.0 - but if I were making decisions about where to invest my time I'd want to make sure it works well on 6.0, 6.1 and 6.5 before I worried about 5.0.

Answer 2

Unless your application requires features of WM6, please target WM5. You'll find many, many, many people are stuck with older WM5 devices due to lingering 2 year contracts with their carriers, businesses that don't want to upgrade their employee phones, and people who aren't on the bleeding edge and only replace a phone if the old one breaks.

If, however, you CAN include new features only on WM6, then don't worry too much about leaving WM5 behind. WM5 devices don't have, and won't have, integrated application services (like the Apple App store) and so without a lot of work you won't see many sales to WM5 - the users have to come to you.

But there will be some sales, depending on your market and application, so don't throw WM5 compatibility away if you don't have to.

Answer 3

6.0 all the way. You don't want to spend your time dealing with Compact Framework 1.0 or requiring your users to install 2.0. You also will have to test on 6.0 and 6.5 (6.1 if you are thorough) adding 5.0 with its oddities is just going to be that much more work. And in the end you will probably expand your actual user base by maybe 10% (based on my experience).