How to port an iPhone app to Windows Mobile
The iPhone is made much better, and a lot more entertaining, because of the App Store. Here is the place where budding developers can sell or give away their wares, and iPhone users can download new applications for their device. Microsoft is hoping to replicate the App Store with the Windows Mobile Marketplace, but how easy is it to port an iPhone app to Windows Mobile?
Even non-Apple fans such as myself can admit that the iPhone is a brilliant device. A cellphone, portable media player, and games console rolled into one, what makes the iPhone such a must-have is the iPhone App Store on iTunes. From the downright brilliant to the absolutely bizarre, there are apps of all kind on the iPhone App Store.
Microsoft really doesn’t want to miss out on this kind of business opportunity. Seeing Apple making a mint and increasing product awareness and desirability from the App Store has prompted the development of the Windows Mobile Marketplace. Microsoft started accepting developer submissions on July 27, with the Marketplace set to make its debut alongside Windows Mobile 6.5.
It will no doubt take a while for Microsoft to build up a worthy collection of platform-exclusive apps, but it can luckily draw on a huge number of apps that have already been developed for the iPhone. That is, of course, if these can be ported over, and if the developer behind each app actually wants to make the switch.
Microsoft has tried to help developers make this transition with a very detailed case study of one developer’s attempt at porting his iPhone app to work on Windows Mobile. The app in question is Amplitude, which amplifies any sound, however quiet, picked up through the device’s microphone and transforms it in to a richer, more audible noise.
There were many obstacles for developer Luke Thompson to overcome, but he eventually managed it despite the two operating systems having some major differences between them. It’s a case study worth reading if you have an iPhone app and want to port it to work on Windows Mobile before the mooted Fall launch of the Windows Mobile Marketplace.
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August 4th, 2009
Why am I not surprised. Microsoft once again riding on the Apple wave!