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Microsoft's Smartphone 2003 SDK Released
cd_Csc writes "Microsoft's long awaited Smartphone 2003 SDK was released today. This free download is critical milestone for the Smartphone platform. For the first time, developers are now able to use the .NET Compact Framework to write Smartphone applications using Visual Studio. At Smartphone Thoughts, we have listed the details of what's new in the 2003 SDK along with some screen shots of enhancements to the Inbox and Internet Explorer applications."
bool makeCall(long phoneNumber) - Calls phonenumber. Must be in (xxx)xxx-xxxx format. Returns true on success.
void hangUp() - Hang up the phone. Has no effect if phone is already hung up.
void blueScreen(double p) - Crash the phone with probability p, sampled every 100 cycles, or whenever the user is on phone with his boss. This is determined by the address book.
...pictures of "enhancements" the placeholder for spam and adverts?
Whatever. I don't want a phone which bluescreens every hour and which has thousands of security holes.
The XHTML support in these phones is great! As a bit of an XHTML/CSS advocate myself, however, I think browsing the Web from such space-limited devices could become a chicken and egg situation.
A LOT of pages out there are poorly coded FrontPage (or even MS Publisher) not-even-HTML 3.2-compliant junk. There are a lot of amazingly beautiful XHTML/CSS coded pages out there, and they all display well on the small screens.
How many people will buy these phones, surf to their favorite page, and then discover they can't get anywhere fast? Will devices like smartphones and portable computers, with and 3G's ability to access the Internet at speed, force more Web designers to follow the chosen path and design in a fully backwards, and forwards, compatable way with XHTML and CSS? Or will we have a chicken and egg situation where people are turned off from using the devices because the content and pages available to them are so poor.. just like with WAP.
I imagine it won't be too long before someone will figure out how to write a worm to DDOS a companies phone system!
Can't wait for that blue screen when trying to call a girl, just one more way microsoft is trying to screw us... :-)
Just how exactly is this more amazing than, say, the Palm OS SDK that has already been out for a while?
Sigs for Nerds. Sigs that Matter.
Ah, the Smartphone that Sendo is suing Microsoft over.
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
Should read:
MoFscker
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
If MS is the one who brings developers tools to develop tomorrows world, I prefer to find another job...
because with all due respect, this SDK works better using CSS/XML methods. Its just easier to use it, second once microsoft release something, even if at the begining it doesnt work right the support and continues development of the SDK makes it the best in the market. Its not a coincidence that microsoft is everywhere - its tools are better and smarter... (let the flaming begin :)
Dont just mail it - Maileet
Pocket Internet Explorer is a full Internet browser with support for HTML, XML/XSL, WML, cHTML, Jscript & SSL.
What happened to VBScript? Not that I'm a fan of VBScript (I hate it for web pages, but it's great as a substitute for batch files...), but still... I have come across many web pages that give out VBScript code in pages when browsing with IE...
Yeah but does it run linux??
We played dungeons and dragons for 3 hours.....then i was slain by an elf
Really. The Qtek phone doesn't even get close to phones like Sony Ericsson P800, and even costs more.
The one thing that guarantees that I will never, ever, EVER own a MS-phone is the simple fact that I actually have to pay for services that originate from that phone. When the first SmartPhone get infected with a worm and causes several hundred dollars in GPRS bills, I'll kiss my t68i and thank it for not being an insecure piece of crap.
Smart Phone is not so smart
Between the security flaws of MS and the morals of the porn industry, I think it would be unwise to use one of these phones for phone sex.
I, for one, welcome our new Microsoft overlords. (What? Same as the old Microsoft overlords? Oh well...)
bloat on the phone. Putting MSoft on phones is like putting Worms in Windows. It just doesn't wo... oh!
Just more microsnot crap I'll do without. In short - who cares? Only mindless M$ droids that let Bill the Bandit do their thinking for them. There are already good, stable, alternative embedded tools for phones and none have the security flaws that using microsnot will bring.
Too lazy to create a sig...
Microsoft's long awaited Smartphone 2003 SDK was released today.
Not a slashdot regular, are you?
Really, it is critical that Smartphone not be allowed to succeed. We don't want Microsoft gaining a significant market share there also. If they happen to get something like 20%, they will start "integrating" a lot of proprietary interop stuff to Windows and aggressively wrestle up the marketshare. MSFT Windows/Offics business is winding down, so Smartphones are an excellent migration route because people actually buy new phones all the time.
Symbian is not all that "open", but they have to support public standards, because they have no choice. Do the industry a favor and boycott handsets that run SmartPhone. I don't know how much it is going to help though, because MSFT has endless stash of money to throw to these "strategic" projects. They are not going to drop out even if they sold zero licenses in 10 year.
Obviously multiple platforms means competition, which brings a little bit energy to the market. Smartphones will be a huge thing in a few years, so platform developers can't really be sitting on their asses for long.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Just think of it as a new'n'improved "Hello World!" program.
Only 2 developers will download it, one of them is called Bill.
Jonathanjk.com
...Does the phone have Ctrl Alt Del Keys? Think it would be mandatory for a MS phone!
-- Fuck Beta
Maybe you should RTFA.
Hurrr hurr hurrr.
Maybe teh XBOX should hav ctrl atl del also!!!!!!111
LOLLLOOOLLLOLOLORRRRZZZZ!!!!!!!!1111
..I still have an old Nokia 5110.. and guess what.. I can still receive or make phone calls!!!!
As someone who earns his living off writing for the .Net framework (Linux at home though ;) I think this is really quite an impressive piece of kit which could have a lot of ramifications for how software is written for phones, web pages and on the desktop.
.Net and the SDK, what it can do. We all know that MS gets a lot of things wrong, but every so often they get something right - as all companies do.
With the latest release of Visual Studio, they have really blurred the difference between how you put together a Windows Form, a ASP.NET form and a Mobile form. Just to have the ability to write a few classes and get good, working output on a Windows Form, ASP.NET form and a mobile form you start to realise just how impressive it is, and also how relatively easy it will be to, for example, take an existing Windows Form app and get it working on a WAP Page, ASP.Net page, Smartphone or anything else. This alone is a huge step forward and is going to make new development a whole lot easier as well as being able to leverage existing software onto the phones.
Sadly, most on here will totally dismiss it with the predictable BSOD 'gags' (again and again... dzz) but this is something which is very impressive. I know you can do similiar things in Java but with MS you will be talking about business applications being run on phones, not the games and utilities that are mainly found on the Java phones. I will add that I do like Java, but I am speaking from what I have seen here.
So, I say to you: take the time just to read about
So what?!!!
Nobody will develop anything! Nobody will use a smartphone with remote exploits available.
NoSuchGuy
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
"Microsoft's long awaited Smartphone 2003 SDK was released today.
For months I slept in a tent before a Microsoft office. I cant wait to pick up my smart phone and start using the SDK for days on end. I will be loosing sleep for whole weeks.
When my first pieces of code are ready I will walk across the street screeming, jumping up and down and showing it to people so they can share the experiences I feel with the Microsoft Smartphone 2003 SDK.
Disclaimer: I have not used any of the SmartPhone SDKs before. "Applications can be woken via a WAP packet over SMS" is exactly the kind of mechanism that virus writers love. I hope this is not turned on by default, because it's exactly the wireless counterpart of the RPC DCOM exploit.
www.rexguo.com - Technologist + Designer
I just tried it! The download is really FREE! I am glad to see Microsoft taking steps to joing the FREE Software Download revolution. Now, if we could just get them to include the source code.
Instead of the Smartphone, MS should call it the Blueberry.
with 90% of smartphones inclduing MS powered ones running J2ME and J2ME applications ..
is MS SamrtPhoneOS owned by J2ME and Sun?
Don't Tread on OpenSource
I'm sorry but Slashdot is "News for Nerds" not "News for Fanatics". Microsoft, like it or not, controls a large amount of the market and their technologies should be reported on like any other companies.
I feel the same way about linux! NEEEEENER
Microsoft's market cap: about 280 Billion $.
Market cap of Motorola, Lucent, Nortel, Nokia combined: = 105 Billion $.
The telecomm industry is hurting, and Microsoft is using every dirty trick in the book to muscle in. They are using their tremendous market cap and huge cash reservers to cajole, bribe, threaten and intimidate the various players. They are doling out large amounts of cash to the service providers (esp 2^nd tier providers like Sprint) to support the Smartphones on the network, and the service provides, who are fighting for their own survival, are in no position to resist.
If they succeed, the Cellphone hardware will be another commodity item with the manufacturers having to subsist on wafer-thin margins, and Microsoft will get $50.00 for every phone sold.
Magnus.
MS does not once in awhile get something right. MS' goal is not to give the customer the best product. MS' interest is to get the customers to use the product and to keep them giving them more money. That is why MS cannot stay competitive in the long run. They dont try to make the best product for us. They try to make the best product for themselves.
The trouble is, the distribution points for these phones are just like the distribution points for new PC's with Windows. The smartphones aren't generally distributed the way most normal handsets like those manufactured by Nokia, Ericsson, and the other big-name brands are. From what I know, these phones are generally sold by a telco as part of their subscriber plans. From what I've heard, this is what Orange is doing, and out here in my country Smart Communications is also distributing these phones along with subscriber plans, even low-level subscriber plans. From what I remember, Smart gives away such an "Amazing Phone" (as they call it) for a plan that amounts to the equivalent of US$16 per month.
If more telcos adopt this strategy, I imagine that Microsoft could actually manage to drive all of the other cellular phone manufacturers out of business in the same way they are able to kill off competing operating systems on the desktop by preinstalling Windows on every new PC. That's the scary part.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
You sound like a salesmen, exactly the kind of people we can do without here.
With their Anti-Open Source software clauses still in place, the potential uptake for this platform is probably not going to be very high, especially among corporates that are increasingly looking for OSS.
Then there is the "Spyware" clause: These are just some of the EULA nasties. There is also, of course, the "can't use this to provide hosting or service" clause (because MS is seeking to corner that particular market). Good luck to all developers who agree to this. For those who do agree to this contract with MS, there is a large red man with cloven hoofs, horns and a funny tail that is mumbling something about "my contract is better".......
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
dumbass.
With a built-in LISP interpreter like real EMACS?
If it were really a smartphone, it would be running linux... ;-)
Microsoft Smartphone: Can you fear me now? Good!
here
extra dev tools for Treo 600 needs a login from
here
Tools from here
Cheers
VikingBrad
All I can say is that I totally love it.
I brought it back from Europe around a year ago and have not had a single problem with it, the interface is great, I have one or two apps that I've written for myself - one that tracks expenses and one that prevents me from buying the same DVDs over and over when I'm in Tower.
Everything that I used to be able to do with my PocketPC can now be done with a single device.
Is a sure loser. If it wasn't they would be charging an arm and a leg for it.
Just in time to port W32.Blaster.
jupp0r
I would bank that people would be using the phone, it would crash due to the "phone virus of the week" or some other "OEM-reposnsible" reason.
many users would then of course say in an exastperated tone (you guessed it): "dumb phone!"
If M$ gets code in cell phones, I am sure hacking and spamming them will get easier.
Plus, the J2ME already has the market cornered on wireless devices. M$ is wasting money and time in a new product when they should be spending that money and time fixing what they already sell.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I recently had the misfortune of trying to get some work done on one of these damned things.
All I wanted to do was verify that the web pages I was producing for clients would be viewable on the Pocket PC 2003.
Unfortunately the Pocket PC SDK claims to need version 4 of the Embedded Visual Tools (EVT, a free Visual C++ for developing pocket PC applictions) but only version 3 of the tools are freely available.
This monstrosity requires over 300MB of disk space, and at least Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service pack 2.
All this so I can check a few web pages work correctly with their lousey browser!
If microsoft want people to provide content for their damned handheld they should provide a copy of Pocket PC that runs on Windows (as an IE Plugin?) to make testing easier for web designers who actually do their job properly and test these things.
Mozilla wont be on handhelds any time soon but to have better chances in the embedded space the will have to make things easier for content providers who are targetting embedded devices.
Opera are about the only group that have gotten this right by providing a "Small Screen" mode (shift + F11) which makes testing for small screens a whole lot easier.
I cant say about solutions such as Qtopia or GPE, but at least in their cases you have the source code so testing for thier browser from your desktop shouldn't be too hard. GPE is using Dillo which makes testing relatively easy.
Microsoft are making a lot of mistakes by making things difficult for content providers.
Providing content for these devices is where the money will be, the users have the pay mentality of mobile phone users and producing content should be as cheap or cheaper than producing web content.
Whoever makes the creation and delivery of this content easier they have a good chance of fighting off microsoft. I can only hope it will be open source solutions levereging the power and integration of open source servers and tools and providing enough added value to convince manufacturers to switch to linux on their handhelds.
Mobile phones and computers are very different animals. First and foremost a phone is a phone. It's not a laptop. It's not a gameboy. It's a phone...you call people with it.
Because of this, people have an expectation that thier phones will have a very high degree of reliability and security. They see mobile phones as an appliance like microwaves, dishwashers, and radios...and any modern appliance that crashed twice a day would be totally unacceptable to most (especially non-techie) consumers. How many people here thing that this brand-new SDK, having never been battle tested in the real world, has managed to fix all of the reliability and security bugs found in all other Microsoft products? Anyone?
Besides there's already One True Platform for mobile development. It's mature, reliable, secure, and included on just about every device being produced today.
So, Microsoft, explain to me exactly why I should even bother with this?
long awaited Smartphone 2003 SDK was released today.
I know I wasn't waiting for it at all....
No news here... move along... until smartphone gets some market at least...
I for one, welcome our new hot grits... PROFIT!
Good! Go get another job.
It was appropriately
:)
Posted by michael on 17/08/03 3:15
from the oxymoron dept.
Very nice touch
3.243F6A8885A308D313
Smartphone is to Microsoft as friendly fire from smart weapons is to... that's right, the U.S. military.
Can I also get some of the stuff you've been smoking lately? Heck, before I'm going to use a phone running some M$ crap, hell's going to freeze. I want to actually use my phone.
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
Yeah, but how likely is that? You, calling a GIRL?
.
Baaah! You know very well that real programmers only use Vi.
Apparently you've just stumbled upon /. You've got a lot of learning a head of you. Well actually fuck you and fuck your comment!!!! RTFM!!!!! Here is a place that has some .NET information for Pocket PC's and SmartPhones. By the way, in Russia the Phones Smart you!. SmartPhones also suck because you can not run VIM or EMACS on it.
/whore for ya.
There, that should be a decent introduction to
Please check out the negative article about this /. article here
When publishing word for word a press release could they please be marked, "propaganda", or something similar?
Mod parent +1 Funny!
NO ID: BEING FREE MEANS NOT HAVING TO PROVE IT
...when SmartPhone2003 debuts in the U.S., will Symantec release *Norton Antivirus for SmartPhone* on the same day? Because surely if they do, CompUSA will have a rebate available if you buy the phone and the software from them on the same receipt...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
"better than the competition" didn't happen until the competition had been driven into the ground, or do you forget predatory pricing, mandatory bundling agreements, exclusionary licensing arrangements, and so forth?
When Microsoft has competition, it is never "better than the competition" that wins marketshare for them. It's "good enough and bundled with Windows".
No, I used the competition. It was crap. MS software was also crap, but not as crappy. The software industry in the early 90's was pathetic. If you expand the "scope" of competition to include other propriatary platforms, then MS software was inferior to some of the competition (Apple), but "bundled with windows" isn't a factor in that equation.
Of course, you can choose to ignore that and continue looking at history with jaded glasses. No skin off my back.
Yes, the software industry in the early 90s WAS pathetic. Microsoft had already established dominance in the OS market and used that OS dominance to subsidize Office.
Had the rivals been able to sell their software and make a profit margin, they would have continued to out-innovate Microsoft. The sad truth is that Microsoft is very good at using dominance in one market to subsidize entry into another, undercutting those rivals until they can't afford to fund innovation (WordPerfect, Lotus, Netscape, were all tremendous innovators until Microsoft undercut their price, reducing their profit margins and their ability to keep up with R&D). "Better than the competition" is easy when the competition can't afford R&D.
Wordperfect died because their software was a user nightmare and they stuck in dos land for too long.
... I could set a watch to it!). Their marketshare (90%) didn't start to decrease signifiantly until IE5, which was a substantially better product than NS4 -- bundling aside.
Lotus was interesting. They pretty much halted development of their flagship products and branched out into other areas, creating a number of complete and utter flops. This "diversion" they went on allowed MS to surpass them. In the early 90's I think they switched over to creating groupware/internet type software, pretty much leaving the productivity suite side of things alone. It was an interesting decision, and showed some forethought, but I think they were a few years ahead of their time. Their products are still sold and used though, except I think IBM bought them out in the mid 90's to do their own thing with it.
Netscape died because they focused more on putting adware and crap into their browser instead of improving its stability and giving their users what they wanted (4.5 would crash on me every frick'in 15 minutes for crying out loud
But hey, don't let the reality of the situation get in the way of your opinion...
You seem to have a rosier recollection of the "facts" than I do, and you still haven't countered any of my points.
Re: WordPerfect. The DOS version wasn't bad. It took them too long to get onto Windows, but it should be noted that they were already unprofitable due to marketshare and price erosion.
Re: Lotus. Lotus halted development on their products because it wasn't profitable for them to continue development due to marketshare erosion. IBM bought them in the mid-90s largely because they wanted to bring Notes to all of IBM's server lines (especially AS/400).
Re: Netscape. And did Netscape 4.5 come out before or after Microsoft decided to release Internet Explorer to the market for free, "integrate" it with Windows, and sign ISPs to exclusionary contracts in exchange for "preferred" placement on the Windows desktop?
As I said, Microsoft didn't win on the merits of their products. They won because of the way they did business. It's hard to out-innovate Microsoft when they can use their hefty profit margins on their entrenched products to subsidize developments in other areas. Only three or four of their seven business units are currently profitable, with the others being subsidized so that they can gain marketshare.
But hey, don't let the big picture get in the way of your selective recall.
Whats wrong with subsidising??? Isnt Microsoft free to choose what it does with the profit it earns??
Nothing's wrong with subsidizing as a general rule. The problem is when you use profits earned from monopoly power (e.g., is Windows 98 *still* worth its $90 shelf price today?!?) and apply those profits to undermining competitors in another market using anti-competitive means (e.g., exclusionary deals with ISPs in Netscape's case, mandatory Windows/Office bundling in WP/Lotus's case).
Capitalism only works when there is *fair* competition, and monopolies can easily undermine any notion of fairness.
--
ohh, last post, i feel giddy
Okay, you're wrong. eVC4 is freely available as well, why not check the website next time? Mobile Developer Downloads. You will also need to download SP2 if you plan on developing against the PPC 2003 SDK.
What, me worry?