Mobile Development with C#

Chapter 1. Surveying the Landscape

The last decade has been nothing short of a whirlwind in the mobile space. Phones have been transformed from simple conveniences to indispensable extensions of everyday life. With high-resolution displays, GPS, cameras capable of both still photography and recording high-definition videos, full-featured web browsers, rich native applications, touchscreens, and a constant connection to the Internet, the phone has evolved into a powerful mobile computer. The evolution has gone so far that the actual telephone functionality has essentially become secondary to the rest of the features. Today’s mobile phone is now more than the sum of its parts. It is your connection to the world.

The Players

As with any fast-moving market, there are many players with skin in the mobile game at any given time. This book, however, is going to be focused on three of the bigger names right now:

iOS

It can be argued that Apple is responsible for being the catalyst in bringing about the modern smartphone generation. Back in early 2007, Apple announced the iPhone, which marked the company’s first foray into building their own mobile phone. The product included many features, such as a touchscreen and a focus on a polished user experience, that would quickly become standard in smartphones across the board. In many ways, the iPhone remains the gold standard for smartphones today, even as the market continues to evolve and innovate. Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS, is also found on its tablet offering, the iPad, as well as the iPod, Apple’s portable music player. Since the company produces both the devices and operating system, it maintains a high level of control over its ecosystem.

Android

Since Google purchased it in 2005 and began releasing versions in 2008, Android has taken the smartphone market by storm. Just a few years and numerous versions after its initial release, as of February 2012, Android accounts for just over 50% of the US smartphone market, a number that continues to climb every month (http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2012/4/comScore_Reports_February_2012_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share). Most of Android is open source and licensed in a way that gives hardware vendors a lot of flexibility, so the ecosystem of Android phones is very diverse. Because of that flexibility, many vendors make significant changes to the versions of Android that ship on their devices, so very few devices are actually running a stock version of the operating system. With the release of Honeycomb, Android has also started to stake its claim in the tablet market as well. Additionally, Android can be found in Google’s television platform, Google TV, as well devices such as Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color and Amazon’s Kindle Fire, which bring the richness of tablets to the world of e-readers. Ice Cream Sandwich, the version of Android following Honeycomb, aims to help bridge the growing divide between Android smartphones and tablets.

Windows Phone

In 2010, Microsoft released Windows Phone 7, which marked a long-overdue shift away from its legacy Windows Mobile platform that had long since stagnated. The user interface in Windows Phone 7, dubbed Metro, is decidedly unlike the approach taken by both iOS and Android. A strong emphasis is placed on simplicity, typography, and expansive interfaces that aim to provide a sense of depth and a natural user experience. Device vendors are given a small amount of freedom in designing their devices, but Microsoft maintains a strict set of requirements they have to meet in order to ensure stability and quality, as well as avoid some of the fragmentation problems seen in the Android realm. While the platform is still in the very early stages of its life, Microsoft seems dedicated to pushing the platform forward to try and gain back some of the market share the company has lost over the years. In late 2011, Microsoft shipped the Windows Phone 7.5 update, codenamed Mango, which started to bring in many features missing from the first releases, such as local databases and camera access.