Windows Mobile Development: Pocket PC AND Smart Phone or Pocket PC Only??

Question

Developing an application with impressive and a little complex GUI is quite easy for Pocket PC platform. But if I want the same application to run on SmartPhone platform as well, I need to make extensive changes in my application. Smart Phone doesn't even support radio buttons.

I want my application be usable on as many mobiles as possible. Can anyone help me regarding this. If I say that I should only develop for Pocket PC because SmartPhone platforms are a very small part of the market, to what extent is this true or false? Or I have to develop for the both platforms? :S

Answer 1

I can't say if you should develop for Windows Mobile Standard or not, that's dependent upon your market and application. I do know from experience that you have to treat Standard and Professional as two completely separate platforms and can share very little code between the two. They need two different designs, both UI and program wise, and also two different approaches in terms of features and functionality.

Answer 2

Unless you have the need for WM standard devices then I personally would go Pocket PC only. I would say that 95% of the WM devices I have seen in the 'real world' are touchscreen pocket pcs.

I wouldn't touch Windows mobile standard with a barge pole as the devices are soo rare! I mean just look at HTC's website. Out of the 26(or something I cant be assed to count) windows mobile devices they currently sell, only 6 are Windows mobile standard!

Answer 3

I've developed for both using a single UI-- it's a bit annoying but not impossible. You have to avoid certain controls (use LinkLabels instead of Buttons, etc.), or even switch out whole forms depending on the device.

For example I have a form that really just needs a whole different layout for smartphones. I build two different versions of the form and have them both. The system picks which form to display at run-time based on the OS version. It's not a lot of extra work since the smartphone form is fairly scaled-down.

Even though there are a more pocketpc users out there, the smartphone people are very happy to have options.