/bill's House O Insomnia : Mobility

Create a Mobile office with Windows Mobile

William — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:23:20 GMT

With such a compelling title, I figured the article would be quite intriguing.

I've had a lot of phone drama recently, dropping my WM 6.1 Dash and breaking it, leaving the replacement on the roof of my car and driving off, buying another imate but dropping it into a diet coke. So I reverted back to my old beloved Voq. A coworker of mine got in iPhone and hacked it up so it would play relatively nice with T-Mobile. He wanted to get rid of it though so I ended up buying it off of him (I can almost hear Sahil gloating now). Shortly afterward, I received a Samsung i780 as a gift so I've mainly been switching between the two (I still can't get the iPhone to work with my T-Mobile data service which gets frustrating). I mention this b/c while the Dash was a pretty nice phone, it really didn't perform all that well. In fact, it was often frustrating. The 6.1 Flash made it a lot nicer but it still was rather slow compared to an iPhone. I had gotten rid of my original iPhone before I really got a chance to use it b/c at first, i didn't like it. After using it regularly for a while though, I'll admit that its usability is very impressive. Its frozen up on my twice in about a month and a half (with heavy usage) compared to the daily freezes I experienced with the Dash. The comparison isn't completely fair b/c hardware wise, the dash is a lot cheaper. And so I guess I'll just come out and concede that Sahil was right, with respect to consumer features, the iPhone provides a much better experience even when you factor in hardware differences. 6.1 mitigates some of that, but there's still a way to go.

Although the iPhone's screen is quite responsive, I think I still prefer an actual keyboard. Unless I'm extremely careful, I almost always spend more time correcting stuff then I do typing when what I'm working on is more than a sentence. Away from that though, there's the Push with Exchange and Sharepoint integration (which surprisingly, I find myself using quite a bit). B/c I don't have wireless Internet on the iPhone, it might be a bigger deal than it should be but AFAIK, Push/Exchange isn't available on iPhone yet. Another really annoying thing w/ iPhone that makes Windows Mobile more 'business friendly' is copy and paste. I never realized how much I used it until I lost it. And I guess I end up using copy/paste much more when I'm mobile then at work b/c typing is still not much fun but being able to quickly edit Excel sheets and paste stuff from word to Outlook and vice versa is huge. And I don't know if it's a true iPhone limitation again b/c I don't have my gprs, but I don't see any way to do internet sharing - from what I can tell, it's not doable with standard USB or Bluetooth.

As far as development goes, well, I'll give Apple some props for the iPhone SDK and I can't say I've spent more than a grand total of 15 hours trying to build stuff with it, but all else being equal, I still think that if I had to build any sort of critical business application, the compact framework not only makes it an easier trip, but it opens up a lot more doors. I don't want to run my big mouth too loudly b/c some of what appear to be limitations may just be limitations with my familiarity of the SDK, but I'm pretty sure that WCF integration is off the table with the iPhone, as is MapPoint / LiveEarth. Same seems to be the case for connecting w/ Sql Server or Oracle although the local db solution offered by Apple does the job pretty well.

At the end of the day, i can say I've really grown to like the iPhone and well, I already like Windows Mobile, even with some of the performance issues that would drive me nuts at times. But I find myself using them for totally different purposes other than of course, to talk. In the same way that I use my UMPC totally differently from my laptop, I find myself switching between these phones the same way. It'll be interesting to see how things develop b/c there's no doubt Microsoft is going to use Silverlight to greatly enhance user experience w/ Windows Mobile 7 and it's a similarly safe bet that Apple is going to try to make the iPhone better at business applications. For now, I'm just really glad I can swap out a SIM card and use whichever I want b/c having to make a firm choice between one or the other would be a real bummer.

Mobile Application Development Webcast Info

William — Fri, 16 May 2008 17:04:00 GMT

Constanze just posted this about a 5 part webcast series he and others like Maarten Struys will be conducting on mobile application development:

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Just wanted to remind everybody that our 5-part Webcast series on Mobile Application Development is starting today. This morning, Maarten Struys and I will provide an introduction into Mobile Application development, we'll show you all the cool tools that are available, plus there will be some demos. So check it out.

The Webcast will start today, Friday, April 16 at 11 AM PST. Here's the link to register for it: Register Here.

See you at the Webcast today!

Constanze

Silverlight for Windows Mobile

William — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:16:00 GMT

Speaking of new features that should help Windows Mobile remain the dominant player in the market, a mobile version of Silverlight is going to be coming down the highway .

The good news:

Expected release is Q2 - 2008
You can use Expression Blend to develop it with. So you won't need a new or additional IDE

The bad news:

It will be Silverlight 1.0

I know, the teeth on that horse you gave me are a little crooked. Response time is really going to be the big factor here... if it's fast and works right, this is going to be a huge, HUGE, feature that will open many doors to mobile development.

The Microsoft® Windows Mobile Line of Business Solution Accelerator 2008!

William — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:04:00 GMT

Rob Tiffany has got the details... .

The main features include:

Intelligent resolution awareness
Synchronization Services
Windows Communication Foundations "Store and Forward"
MapPoint
LINQ
Custom Controls
Managed Stored Procedures and Triggers
Notifications and Online Help
Language Switching and Localization

Some of these (WCF, Synchronization Services) are a lot more thrilling than others but all in all it's a great step forward. With that said, I think MS really needs to work on a few things. When the iPhones first came out, I was lucky enough to have one sent to me. I liked it but didn't go gaga over it. After two days, I decided to sell it. I think UI wise, it was far ahead of a typical SmartPhone although the PocketPC edition phones gave it a lot better run for the money. But I know that my opinion is not typical. In fact, most iPhone users who have used or use Windows Mobile are really adamant about the superiority of the UI and usability. I think some of that is b/c they are comparing a 500.00 phone with a much cheaper one in many cases but across the board, the iPhone does probably have the advantage. Having started to toy with the iPhone SDK, I have to admit it's fairly easy to pick up (nowhere near as easy as the Compact Framework) so once more applications come out for it, it will make it all the more attractive to mainstream users. I have a lot of faith in Microsoft though and nothing would please me more than for Windows Mobile 7.0 to work so well that my obnoxious iPhone owning friends will have to pipe down about the greatness of the iPhone. The accelerator however, is definitely a step in the right direction.

I'd just close the hole...

William — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 02:15:00 GMT

There are often times that I read something, typically involving a lawsuit, that I'm shocked people push. Often they are so embarassing, I'd probably pay extortion money to keep the crap quiet if someone threatened to go public about something I did. But instead of trying to keep it quiet and just fixing it, they involve lawyers and threats. NewsFlash - threatening bloggers and web sites backfires. I can say unequivocally, if I was the one that created something this widely used, that brough in this much money and had such a glaring security flaw , I would just fix it quietly. I wouldn't want my name associated with something this moronic and sloppy. I'd be paying bribes to the owner of HowardForums to have him keep it quiet, not threatening him and attracting attention. Actually, I'd do neither. I'd thank him for helping me create a more secure system (then I'd fall on my sword in ritual suicide b/c Gawd this is embarassing)

Protecting your laptop data like a Pro

William — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:47:50 GMT

Nothing too shocking if you take protecting your data seriously, but a good read nonetheless. These days, depending on what you do, a stolen laptop could make front page news, a little precaution goes a long way