14 March 2007
Run .NET apps on your Nokia S60 phone
Red Five Labs has released their implementation of the .NET Compact Framework 1.0 for Nokia S60 smartphones. Their .NET Compact Framework implementation brings .NET technology to the Symbian platform.
It enables mobile applications targeting Microsoft's .NET Compact Framework 1.0 to run unchanged on Symbian OS (the operating system running the smartphones of, amongst others, Nokia and Sony Ericsson).
This is a very cool development that holds out some real promise for attracting developers to the hugely popular, but somewhat application-shy S60 platform.
The direct benefit to .NET developers is the ability to build mobile applications using the familiar .NET suite of software development technologies whilst targeting devices powered by the high performance mobile device operating system, Symbian OS.
Some salient points:
- They're releasing it with a no-royalties runtime. Perfect.
- It's the real thing: managed code, the CLR, Visual Studio 2003/05 tools, your choice of C# or VB.NET, binary compatibility with apps targeted for Windows Mobile
- They used some of the code from the Mono project for this. Don't be surprised if Linux platforms like ALP become their next target.
Some questions, though, which I hope to have answers for soon:
- Since S60 doesn't have a touchscreen am I correct in assuming this only works for apps developed for the Smartphone profile of Windows Mobile?
- How are they doing the GUI? To use an analogy to Java, are these Swing-like controls (living in managed code-land) or SWT-like controls that are proxies for native widgets?
- How soon before a lot of the stuff that was left out of .NET CF 1.0 is going to be added?
- How soon before this starts shipping in the ROM of an S60 phone?
- What about an implementation of SQL CE?
One of the things that still makes SuperWaba so compelling for cross-platform Windows Mobile and Symbian projects is that you have a simple, but serviceable no royalties SQL database engine. Plus you get Palm OS, Linux and Sony PSP support. Unfortunately, SuperWaba suffers from being almost invisible to developers and users north of the Equator. It's a real shame that someone with a little venture capital hasn't scooped that little company up and given their platform the treatment it deserves.
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