Will’s Blog

I’m currently starting to prepare myself to go from doing ASP.NET Web Application development, to jumping into the world of developing for Mobile devices utilising the .NET Compact Framework (v2.0).

From what I know thus far, the company i’m working for is planning to purchase several i-mate Jams (which runs Windows Mobile 2003 SE). They were considering the i-mate PDA2k (CDMA version), but decided those were a bit too big.

Here’s a few links that I bookmarked yesterday:

• What’s New in the .NET Compact Framework 2.0
• Creating Self-Updating Applications With the .NET Compact Framework
• Compact Framework FAQ (via OpenNetCF.org Wiki)

There’s a lot more out there, and there’s a few others that I’ve bookmarked. But I think you’ll find a lot of links that are useful in the Compact Framework FAQ.

And no, this does not mean i’m moving away from ASP.NET development. I’ll still be doing some work with ASP.NET (seeing as i’m the only developer at my company). So at times i’ll be switching back and forth between the two very different areas.

You’re probably wondering why I didn’t just design a new set of interfaces for the web app that targets the mobile devices.
I did think about that. But in the end, it came down to giving the users access to data when there is no GPRS connection available. That, and the GPRS data rates in Australia. (Still quite pricey). We’ll still be using GPRS though.

I’m planning to use Web Services to perform the data synchronisation between the Windows Mobile device, and the app server.

One other thing that needs to be considered is what to do when the user loses their device?
Well, that’s where the new Exchange Server 2003 Remote Wipe feature comes in handy.

One of my other considerations was what would this mobile app look like. What does a typical Pocket PC UI look like? And how usable is that UI for users who want to be able to flip between using the stylus, or using their finger as the input device?

These devices are touch sensitive, so some of my users may well decide they wanted to use their fingers rather than pulling out the stylus. I had a look at the various apps that came with the emulator (Pocket Outlook, Calendar, etc). As well as the Pocket TaskVision sample application.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 11th, 2006 at 09:34 am and is filed under .NET, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.