{"id":2163,"date":"2010-01-24T19:19:14","date_gmt":"2010-01-24T18:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/2163-a-silverlight-ui-for-windows-mobile-7-backward-compatibility-in-doubt.html"},"modified":"2010-01-24T19:19:14","modified_gmt":"2010-01-24T18:19:14","slug":"a-silverlight-ui-for-windows-mobile-7-backward-compatibility-in-doubt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/2163-a-silverlight-ui-for-windows-mobile-7-backward-compatibility-in-doubt.html","title":{"rendered":"A Silverlight UI for Windows Mobile 7, backward compatibility in doubt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Note: speculative post; I have no official information on this.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been <a href=\"http:\/\/wmpoweruser.com\/?p=4628\">rumoured for ages<\/a>; but at this point I would be surprised if the Windows Mobile 7 UI were not built with Silverlight. Consider:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Silverlight has to be supported \u2013 it should have been in 6.5 \u2013 otherwise nobody will take mobile Silverlight seriously<\/li>\n<li>WM7 has to have excellent UI design; and WPF\/Silverlight is Microsoft\u2019s designer-friendly UI framework<\/li>\n<li>Silverlight 4 already supports touch control in the current beta<\/li>\n<li>Scaling\/Zooming is baked into Silverlight and ideal for a mobile UI<\/li>\n<li>If Silverlight is present on the device it would make sense to build the UI with it<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If this is right, there are a couple of interesting aspects for developers. It will make Silverlight a more attractive platform in scenarios such as Enterprise roll-outs where the device can be specified.<\/p>\n<p>The awkward question: what about all those existing Windows Mobile apps built either with native code or with the compact framework? Again, there are rumours of <a href=\"http:\/\/wmpoweruser.com\/?p=12237\">lack of backward compatibility<\/a>. Does that mean that all Windows Mobile 7 apps with a UI will have to be done in Silverlight? That\u2019s what <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mobilecrunch.com\/2010\/01\/18\/everything-you-need-to-know-about-windows-mobile-7\/\">John Biggs<\/a> says:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>WinMo 7 will not run 6.x code. End of story. It is based on Silverlight and .Net. Everything save a few basic programs will not work under WinMo 7. There is no expectation that this will be a \u201cbusiness device\u201d and the focus is currently on games including some XBox Live functionality for gaming and messaging. There will be a Microsoft App store with an easy approval process.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I find this a stretch. I can believe that Microsoft might initially target the consumer market, or have crippled \u201cconsumer\u201d versions; but not that it would give up on mobile business apps \u2013 we heard at PDC (to the point of tedium) how Microsoft is supporting \u201cthree screens and a cloud\u201d, unified for developers by Visual Studio. There\u2019s no reason why Silverlight should not be used for business apps.<\/p>\n<p>What about backward compatibility though? Traditionally Microsoft does a good job of keeping your old stuff running, within reason; possibly too good &#8211; Windows is full of compatibility hacks that may be to its detriment overall.<\/p>\n<p>Another point to bear in mind: WM7 needs a browser, and I don\u2019t see Microsoft re-implementing IE in Silverlight. <\/p>\n<p>So I\u2019m sceptical about this too; but with Windows Mobile at such a low ebb could the company decide it has little to lose?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Note: speculative post; I have no official information on this. It\u2019s been rumoured for ages; but at this point I would be surprised if the Windows Mobile 7 UI were not built with Silverlight. Consider: Silverlight has to be supported \u2013 it should have been in 6.5 \u2013 otherwise nobody will take mobile Silverlight seriously &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/2163-a-silverlight-ui-for-windows-mobile-7-backward-compatibility-in-doubt.html\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A Silverlight UI for Windows Mobile 7, backward compatibility in doubt<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,55,56,77,80,97],"tags":[586,825,1009],"class_list":["post-2163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-net","category-microsoft","category-mobile","category-silverlight","category-software-development","category-windows","tag-microsoft","tag-silverlight","tag-windows-mobile-7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}