14 DAY TRIAL // One of the most attractive new features that the upcoming 6.5 flavor of Microsoft's Windows Mobile will bring along is the support for widgets. These are HTML and CSS-based, JavaScripts single-purpose tools that deliver to users services like the latest news, the weather, the time, calendar and more, depending on what one wants to do with them, the same as gadgets did in Windows Vista.
Microsoft already announced the upcoming widget support with Windows Mobile 6.5, and even started to help developers build them, yet neither the platform nor the Windows Marketplace for Mobile, the place where all these solutions will become available, have been released just yet. Even so, one company seems to have become tired of waiting and already released its widget pack for the OS, namely Fuze Mobility.
“So we stepped in and we’re providing 50 Widgets today!,” the company says. “These are not complex widgets. In fact, they’re among the most simplistic widgets that can be made but they do provide a ‘chromeless’ experience that have the feel of apps (and they install like apps). They do require an internet connection when in use (since they are grabbing data from the web) but I think the end experience is still a good one. If you enter your information it is remembered so on the weather widget, for example, it will remember your location.”
According to Fuze Mobility, the idea is to make even more developers aware of the presence of widgets, so as to determine them to come to the market with more complex ones. While being compatible with the upcoming Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system, these won't work on the currently available iterations of the platform. At the same time, we should note that Microsoft already announced that only the widgets available through the Marketplace would work on the OS, as they would be digitally signed.
While waiting for the OS and the software portal to be officially launched, you might want to check out the widgets now available from Fuze Mobility, including Fuze Mobility, Mobility Digest, Tilt Mobility, XBox 360 Digest, Mobility Digest Forums, Herg’’s Corner, Mobile Matt FaceBook, and so on. Head on to the company's site to find them all.
