Smartphone Thoughts: Thoughts on MEDC Bill Gates Keynote

Bill Gates' keynote has just finished, the session featured a number of Windows Mobile and Windows Embedded technologies but the key announcement was the release of Windows Mobile 5.0 the latest platform for Pocket PC and Smartphone devices.

Windows Mobile 5.0 adds support for soft-keys to the Pocket PC interface making it closer to the Smartphone experience and allowing you full control over the device through keyboard and and hardware keys. The productivity applications have been revamped as the Office Mobile suite - Outlook Mobile, Excel Mobile, Word Mobile and new for Pocket PC Powerpoint Mobile. The user interface in the built in productivity applications is dramatically changed with support for contact pictures and support for kicking off actions from the contact screen. Microsoft will also allow OEMs to incorporate Voice Command, previously a separate application, directly into the ROM on their devices.

For the developer there are a number of new APIs and features. These include a unified API for device cameras, currently each OEM implements these differently. There is also a new GPS API which allows multiple applications to consume location data from a connected receiver.

For managed code (.NETCF) developers there is a whole suite of Windows Mobile 5.0 specific libraries which include:

� Microsoft.WindowsMobile.Configuration - Easy access to the XML based configuration APIs.
� Microsoft.WindowsMobile.Forms - Camera Capture and Contact Picker functionality.
� Microsoft.WindowsMobile.PocketOutlook - full access to the Pocket Outlook Object Model, including support for sending email and SMS and ability to intercept incoming SMS messages from .NETCF code.
� Microsoft.WindowsMobile.Status - provides access to a wide range of system properties and raises events when these properties change, such as when the device power becomes low, or your currently playing media changes.
� Microsoft.WindowsMobile.Telephony - allows you to place voice calls through just a couple of lines of code.

The new Visual Studio 2005 toolset, currently in Beta allows developers to create both native code (C++) and managed code (C# and VB) applications for Windows Mobile 5.0. The tools include powerful database management tools for working with the SQL Mobile database engine and quickly building database driven applications.