How Unified is Windows Mobile 5.0?

[Peter Foot]

Prior to the release of Windows Mobile 5.0 there were many rumours that there would no longer be two separate platforms (Pocket PC and Smartphone) but a single platform supporting both touchscreen and keypad based devices. In reality the two platforms are still very much separate in this release. There are a number of advances that have been introduced to bring the two platforms closer in line but there are still fundamental differences and two separate SDKs.<br /><br />Functionality has been added to Smartphone to add features previously missing such as support for installing the SQL Mobile 2005 database engine. Also Smartphone gains application support previously only available on Pocket PC such as the Pictures application.<br /><br />On the Pocket PC, some changes have been made to the UI to allow it to support softkeys. For new applications if only 2 top level menu items are present these are rendered as large softkeys at the bottom of the screen which will be familiar to Smartphone users. New devices built specifically for Windows Mobile 5.0 will have physical hardware keys to map to these items. The shell itself has improved support for navigating using hardware keys and the direction pad. Visual cues are added to controls to indicate where the current keyboard focus is.<br /><br />These are interesting changes which will allow hardware manufacturers to produce more innovative device form-factors however the user will still need to be aware of which platform the device uses as software will be specifically built for one or the other. An exception here is that is is possible to write a single application in managed (.NET Compact Framework) code which will run on both platforms if it uses a lowest-common-denominator approach.

[gibson042]

Thank you for the clarification. I was really wondering about this, and I know that many others were too. So basically, the platforms are still separate but .NET CF programs will work on both without recompilation?

I'm happy with that. I've been looking forward to more cross-platform applications since hearing about .NET VNC Viewer (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=37096) back in January.

[k1darkknight]

New devices built specifically for Windows Mobile 5.0 will have physical hardware keys to map to these items.
Hmmm...I wonder if they'll include support to map buttons on regular PPCs that don't have 'softkeys' to these softkey functions. You can already map any button except the d-pad to virtually anything, so I don't see why not. Although, what I'd love would be an application that allowed you to set software-specific functions for each button, for any program you install on your PPC, similar to what they did with Media Player, but as a 3rd party app. I wouldn't think it'd be TOO difficult...granted, I'm no programmer, but I've seen developers do some pretty incredible things with PPCs...


k1darkknight, aka trig- ...eh... button-happy

[gibson042]

Windows Mobile 5.0 will definitely include support for mapping arbitrary buttons to soft key functions. User alex_kac has described his experiences with the new OS on an old device.

As for current hardware not having the buttons for them - you're right. But what does that matter? You can assign current hardware buttons to them and you know that even newer hardware will have new hardware buttons to support the soft keys. The fact is I'm using them on hardware that has no actual hardware for them and I'm really liking them in many places (though not all).