14 DAY TRIAL // Touchscreen-enabled mobile phones have seen a lot of traction on the market lately, and handset makers around the world have announced their focus on this type of devices, which drives for more and more software platforms and applications to be optimized for touch usage, somehow leaving the handsets that do not include this feature aside.
As Microsoft is preparing for the launch of its future version of the Windows Mobile operating system, the company was expected to focus a lot on the touchscreen capabilities of the solution, yet it seems that it will also provide support for devices that are not touch-enabled. We already know that the platform will come to mobile phones like the HTC Touch Pro2 or the HTC Touch Diamond2, which sport touch capabilities, yet there will certainly be others that won't.
According to the Windows Marketplace Application Standard Guidelines, standard phones are also supported with the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system, and developers are encouraged to design their applications so as to include support for them as well.
“It is highly recommended that applications should have the ability to run on two or more Windows Mobile 6.5 device platforms, for example, multiple Standard and/or Professional devices. Writing to multiple Windows Mobile devices helps extend the market opportunity for developers and gives end-users greater choice when making purchase decisions concerning both applications and Windows Mobile devices. This requirement is waived for ruggedized devices, which [are] also referred to as Vertical market devices,” is what the Guidelines state.
This should allow many users who currently own Windows Mobile-powered handsets eligible for upgrade to the future 6.5 version of the platform to wait for an upgrade without being afraid that their devices might not be compatible. Unfortunately, there are no exact details on what standard phones will actually support the OS, but we hope for more info to surface in the near future, so stay tuned to learn more on this topic.