Category Archives: Mobile

Interesting Windows Phone 7 Development Tidbits

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  • Currently C# is the only supported programming language;
  • Windows Phone is cloud-ready – you might for example want to integrate XBox Live;
  • Windows Phone will only support 2 resolutions – 480×800 and 320×480;
  • Your windows phone is orientation aware – in Silverlight you will have explicit orientation events which you can use to manipulate the UI in your apps;
  • Since the Windows Phone has a built-in accelerometer you will be able to program against it – using a standard API;
  • Windows Phone 7 supports multi-touch, again a new way to handle input both in XNA as well as Silverlight;
  • Navigation uses pages;

Source

10 mobile tech trends to watch for in 2011

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“Spending on mobile applications and technologies is expected to increase, as enterprises emerge from the global recession. In a March report, research firm Gartner took a closer look at 10 mobile technologies it expects will become increasingly popular through 2011 and so should be on every enterprise’s radar. From Bluetooth versions 3 and 4 to enhanced location awareness, Gartner expects these technologies to affect corporate strategies, address mobile challenges and see IT be on the wish lists of employees.”

Read more on ITWeb

Bing on Windows Phone 7 Series

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“Microsoft is making improvements to its Bing search engine to surface answers more quickly for its users in the hope of helping them make purchasing decisions. Microsoft demonstrated these changes at the Search Engine Strategies show in New York March 25, showing Bing on a Windows Phone 7 Series device and a real-time integration with location-sharing service Foursquare. The new features are the latest move in the company’s broad effort to gain more market share from Google and Yahoo.”

Read more…

Current Windows Mobile apps won’t run on Windows Phone 7

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It seems that existing Windows Mobile applications will unfortunately be incompatible with Windows Mobile 7 phones.

Microsoft Partner Group Program Manager for the Windows Phone Application Platform & Developer Experience, Charlie Kindel, had the following to say:

“To enable the fantastic user experiences you’ve seen in the Windows Phone 7 Series demos so far we’ve had to break from the past.To deliver what developers expect in the developer platform we’ve had to change how phone apps were written. One result of this is previous Windows mobile applications will not run on Windows Phone 7 Series.”

Source

No Native Code Development on Windows Phone 7

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“Windows Phone 7 is a managed code platform, we’ve been told at Mix10 in Las Vegas. Development is via Silverlight or XNA; there is no native API.

Of course there is a native API; the question is more about what code is allowed to access it. Still, in the press briefing the spokesman was clear that native code development will not be supported.”

Read more…

SharePoint 2010 and Windows Phone 7 Applications

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SharePoint on your mobile.  SharePoint on your mobile.  SharePoint on your mobile.

No, the first paragraph of this post is not an error.  I want to highlight this.  Why would you ask?  Well, in my experience this wonderful “semi built-in” capability of SharePoint is so often overlooked.  What do we need to do to get customers excited about it?  How do we sell it better?

Well for starters, I believe there needs to be much bigger uptake within the community (specifically South Africa) around creating prepackaged style sheets for mobile views and so forth.  In my world, a better overall understanding of said component will culminate in more chatter and excitement which inevitable transfers to our clients.

So where to from here?

Enter SharePoint 2010 and Windows Phone 7

I caught an article by Jan Tielens on a “retweet” from a friend @Veronique and was amazed at how pretty the content is displayed.  With previous versions of SharePoint on the phone kind of posts, I always thought it was nice, but not practical.  This article demonstrates not only a wonderful solution, but something I honestly believe would add an immense amount of value to clients.  Let’s hope it’s fairly simple to deploy.

Jan Tielens

SharePoint on Windows Phone 7

The screenshot above illustrates how announcements are displayed and accessed via the mobile phone.  This makes me SO excited as you can obviously extend this to any list within SharePoint.  Then, “oh don’t get me started as there are unlimited possibilities” imagine the power of creating an SharePoint External List and allowing users to access that via their phone.

Boom!!! Line of business data on your mobile phone while utilizing SharePoint’s permissions / audit trails et al.  Mobile development is not our core competence right now, but after viewing what is possible I will certainly start being more vocal about the possibilities to our clients.

You can read Jan’s full article here – http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/archive/2010/03/17/my-first-windows-phone-7-app-getting-sharepoint-content.aspx

OneNote Mobile – Gotta love it

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I recently started using OneNote mobile again and just thought I need to rant about it online a little. I really enjoy the adhoc nature of OneNote especially for meetings / general thoughts and having this extension on my phone is fantastic.

I haven’t been a huge fan of Windows Mobile (guess because I never used it) and ever since I started using it recently it’s open up other areas of usage for technology on the go, enter OneNote Mobile.

I’m on the road a fairly large part of the day as I’ve moved in the business development department at my company. Keeping tabs of what I’m busy with and what I need to get to gets more and more tricky as many of my meetings happen in and around coffee shops and lunch bistro’s. Taking out a laptop and typing out large OneNote / Word notes of a particular meeting isn’t for this reason not always practical. What I do to overcome this is simply carry a small notepad (yes pen and paper) with me along with my trusty Windows Mobile phone.

After I have completed a number of meetings I will typically just add the notes into OneNote Mobile under the appropriate heading (date for example). These notes, whether it be an audio note (great while you driving) or a typed note (post a meeting) get synchronized to my OneNote Notebook on my laptop for easy “action” at a later point.

As metnioned before keeping notes in this manner is also a fairly easy way to illustrate to your peers what you are up on a day to day basis. This, in the current economic climate, is great especially in the business development team where you are in charge of running your own diary.

OneNote Mobile has given me an scribble pad on my phone which, with proper discipline becomes either a “to do” list or a “what have I been up to today” diary.

iPhone Applications

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iPhone Applications

iPhone Applications

I’m not a smartphone person, I like my phones basic, to the point of it being archaic.  I believe a phone should make calls and send text and multimedia messages.  Yes sure, I enjoy browsing the net every so often, but if I want to do anything work related, I’ve got my laptop and a trusty 3G connection with me more often than not.

Although this is my current view, I do recall that I was that guy that was still using a keyboard for first person shooter games months after the mouse was introduced to “look”.  So it’s clear that my outlook on smartphones might change in the near future and to be honest, judging by applications available on the iPhone, this time might be closer than I would like to admit.

Speaking of applications, iPhone has approximately 800 add-on applications on offer at the moment, compare that to Nokia’s 18000 and it doesn’t sound like a lot, but for the discerning application installer, 800 is still a lot to sift through in order to find the best.  Luckily Jeremy Caplan has already done that.  In his article titled “Sorting the Jewels from the Junk in the iTunes Store”  he picks the 11 coolest free applications that are available.  It’s a great overview for not only the smartphone user, but also for the interested but not yet converted among us.

Here is a quick summary on the applications that might convert me into a smartphone user:

http://www.yelp.com/:  Ever been stuck in a foreign place without something to do?  This application has a ton of user reviews on anything from restaurants to hairstylists.  It uses the iPhone’s GPS to track down places near to you, but sadly it currently only has American cities available.

http://www.instapaper.com/:  I often use my mobile phone to read a couple of news / blog articles when I’m killing time waiting in line at a grocer or sitting at an airport.  Instapaper allows you to send stories you find online to your phone to read later. 

Resources:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1823107_1823513,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone
http://www.yelp.com/
http://www.instapaper.com/