Mobile Development Microsoft Mobile Platforms Rob Miles Department of Computer Science

Introduction A bit of history At bit of architecture Where the Pocket PC came from Where the Smartphone came from Pocket PC Phone Edition At bit of architecture How the platforms run the programs Why managed code is wonderful A bit of construction The tools you will need

Pocket PC Originally called the “wallet PC” Launched in 1996 with Version 1.0 of Windows CE Superseded in the following year with Version 2.0 Initially available in keyboard and keyboard-less versions

Breakthrough Pocket PC: Compaq Ipaq This was the first device to deliver on performance, display and battery life 120MHz processor 32MB of RAM Flash ROM RS232 and IR ports 240x320 TFT colour display

State of the art Pocket PC Dell Axim V50s 624Mhz Processor 64MB RAM 480x640 colour display WIFI and Bluetooth 3D Graphics accelerator Windows Mobile 5 upgradeable £150 less than the original IPAQ!

Smartphone In 2001 Microsoft announced that it would be launching a range of Smarpthones (codenamed "Stinger") The Smartphones would be "Windows based" The version of Windows in question was Windows CE 3.0 Launched in October 2002 with Orange SPV

Breakthrough Smartphone: SPV E200 First to deliver on performance and battery life: 32MB user memory Built in Bluetooth support Built in camera Smartphone 2003 Operating System .NET Compact Framework

State of the art Smartphone: SPV C500 Launched in August 2004 64MB of internal memory Fast internal processor (200 MHz) Small form factor Runs Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition Being replaced by the C550 which adds Media Player 10 for protected content

Pocket PC Phone Edition Combines PDA with phone Launched in July 2002 206-MHz Intel StrongArm processor 32MB RAM Based on Pocket PC 2002

Breakthrough Device: XDA II Launched in April 2004 400MHz Processor 128MB RAM Camera Bluetooth Windows Mobile 2003

State of the Phone Edition: XDA IIS Launched in April 2005 Integrated Keyboard Improved performance

What you should be saving up for…. First 3G Windows Mobile Device Branded as Orange M5000 VGA resolution display (640x480) WIFI support Two cameras Windows Mobile 5.0 Want one

Other devices of note Gizmondo Imate JAM Offers a Windows CE based gaming platform with GPS, GPRS and 3D Acceleration built in Licensed developers only (sadly) Imate JAM Very small Pocket PC phone edition New form factor for Pocket PC

The Future… The development of the devices over the last few years has been amazing The systems are going to get more powerful and more connected Location based behaviour is now very easy to implement in systems

Architecture If you write programs for the mobile devices you should plan to work in the Compact Framework using “managed” code This makes your programs Portable Safe Easy to write

Managed and Native Code Managed Code User Program .NET Compact Framework Class Libraries Native (Unmanaged Code) User Program .NET Compact Framework Common Language Runtime Processor and Operating System Services

Native (unmanaged) code Programs are compiled to machine code for the target processor Created in C++ or Visual Basic and compiled for the specific hardware in the device Has direct access to the processor instruction set Scary stuff for uber-geeks

Managed Code Programs execute within a managed environment Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) is Just In Time compiled on the target device Code is not produced for a specific target hardware Code is validated before execution Helps programmers sleep at night

Managed Code is Best You should concentrate on managed code development it is easier and faster to create programs are inherently more reliable and easier to debug However, we need to be aware that there is a performance penalty for working this way the first time a method is called the run time system must "Just In Time" compile the MSIL code for that method into machine code this can lead to delays when programs start up and, sometimes during execution when new classes are loaded

Inside a Managed Code Program Because the executable is a .NET program you can use ILDASM and other tools to manipulate it You could even create MSIL applications for mobile devices if you wish

P/Invoke is your friend If you need to get “down and dirty” from managed code you use Platform Invoke (P/Invoke) This provides marshalling of data to and from calls to native methods You will use this to access some parts of the operating system the Compact Framework cannot reach: Device Data: Battery Life etc Placing Calls and SMS messages

So, Rules To Code By Use Managed Code wherever possible Good reasons to use Native Code: You *really* want speed You *really* want to drive the hardware directly You are being paid *really* large sums of money to do it Compromise If you need native code, put it in a native code library and then talk to it via the Platform Invoke (P/Invoke) mechanism

Writing the Code You can use C# if you like (in fact I insist) You can use Visual Studio A lot of the forms behaviours map directly across to the mobile platform You do not need a real device Unless you want to place phone calls or send/receive SMS messages

Visual Studio 2003 Visual Studio 2003 as supplied will develop managed code applications for the Pocket PC By adding the Smartphone Developer kit to Visual Studio 2003 you can use this to develop Smartphone applications The Smartphone Developer Kit is a free download, but you need to have Visual Studio to make use of it

Visual Studio 2005 This is a significant advance over Visual Studio 2005 The Forms editor now functions with a more complete emulation of the mobile device display The emulation of the devices is now at processor level rather than an 8086 version of the device You can pick up Beta 2 for free!

Deploying the Program When the program is executed from within Visual Studio it is copied into a directory on the target device and executed from there You can deploy the program just as an executable file if you wish, by copying it into a directory on the Smartphone using the ActiveSync Or you can build an installer

Debugging The debug tools are very powerful You can: Pause an executing program Add a breakpoint to an executing program without stopping it These facilities work on the target device too You must however have used Debug mode to build the application The Remote Display Power tool can be useful here

Finding the Program The more recent mobile phones are shipped with file browser programs you can use to find and run the executable directly Pocket PC owners can use the built in file browser

Developers Toolkits… To start to develop you need: Visual Studio 2003 Active Sync. 3.7 or better Smartphone 2003 tools Visual Studio 2005 Active Sync. 4.0 Powertoys You should also get the Power Toys

Call to Action The devices out there are getting really powerful and connected They are about as easy to write for as desktop machines This is a genuinely new area where the scope for innovation is huge So get out there and get started!