Lend your support to a generic updater tool

[Guest PayableOnDeath]

Restoring apps isn't something i've thought about yet.

Doing as you say would still check versions, even though there would kinda be nothing install. Maybe a recovery mode?

P

ah yeh didnt think of that, it would still think it was installed and unless a new ver was out it wouldnt do it again, unless there was a reinstall button then i guess it would work

[Guest geneb]

What versions of Win Mobile will this be compatible with?

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Any PPC or SP with .net CF 2 upwards...

P

[Guest akac]

Any PPC or SP with .net CF 2 upwards...

P

That would be a major issue. We would not be able to ask people to install .NET CF 2.0. We must be able to support whatever is on a stock WM2003 PPC or WM5 Smartphone and up.

[Guest johncody]

M@rkC - Spread the word. The more the merrier! :D

I was thinking of calling it 'AppToDate' :wub:

P

PS If someone goes off an registers that domain before me, it WON'T be called that :D

Hey Paul,

Count on my (OMNISOFT) support too!

Also, I thought of a similar idea last year and registered the domain name "pocketupdates.com" just in case.

So, if the 'AppToDate' name is not written in stone yet and you like "Pocket Updates", I could make that domain availible for this project ;)

-John Cody

[Guest johncody]

That would be a major issue. We would not be able to ask people to install .NET CF 2.0. We must be able to support whatever is on a stock WM2003 PPC or WM5 Smartphone and up.

I totally agree that it's important to support these older OS ver's ;)

[Guest johncody]

Some ideas I had for an updater app:

1) Allow the program to run on a schedule or manually

2) Allow to user to "Ignore" a found update - meaning if the user is not interested in a particular update version, then can inform the updater app to just ignore that particular version, but notify the user of any updates higher then the ignored version. This would eliminate any false "update found" notices that the user is not interested in.

3) Since smartphones don't really support pop-up tip windows like Pocketpc's, another method needs to be used to inform the user that new updates exists for one or more apps after a scheduled update scan was performed. I think it would be cool for the updater app to offer two ways to notify the user. a) Create a new Task item in pocket outlook with the details of each found update that the user will see in their agenda, B ) Create and send an email to the user themself with details of the update found (since many people user their inbox as a todo list).

4) In the remote XML file, I think it would be cool to include these fields:

- What is the currently available version for this product

- Minimum version that this latest version is a free update to

- A link to a "What's New" webpage that will list the changes from the version the user has to the current version (helps the user determine if they want to install the update or not)

- CAB file download link for latest version

- URL of payment page if there is a cost to obtain the latest version (if the user's version is lower then above "minimum free update" version.)

- A short text note field containing any notes about the currently available version (i.e. "IMPORTANT PATCH") which can be displayed in the updater's main listing.

5) Just like microsoft's Windows Update, have three modes for updates: a) Notify user that there is a new version, but don't download or install. B ) Notify user and download the CAB file if the newer version is a free upgrade to the user's existing version, but don't install. c) Notify user, download and install the CAB file if the newer version is a free upgrade to the user's existing version. *** One important thing that I have noticed...If a windows mobile device has been running for a while without a fresh reboot, installing a new app could cause very strange problems with the device. Therefor, I don't know if option "C" (automatically install update if one is found) is a good idea.

Edited September 5, 2007 by johncody

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

That would be a major issue. We would not be able to ask people to install .NET CF 2.0. We must be able to support whatever is on a stock WM2003 PPC or WM5 Smartphone and up.

OK, so we can run with CF 1.0. Just means I have to write my own XML selectsinglenode routine. I've done it before, I can do it again ;)

P

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Good points John!

I think even if we roll the first test version with a basic featureset, we can easily put in new features and have the app autoupdate itself ;)

P

[Guest geneb]

I'll volunteer to test.

I'm using WM2003 on an Axim X5. Doesn't seem like too many people are using anything older than that.

Should be a good test of backward compatibility! ;)

[Guest ppcmd]

Its good to see the interest from the developer community, another key part of it is to make sure users know about this and mention it with the supporting devs sites at time of purchase or d/l. It of course needs to be small and allow for the .cab file to be copied to the storage card so you can copy it back to your computer later, no need to d/l it twice.

[Guest Christopher Woods]

Gorgeous in its simplicity and "why didn't I think of that first" factor! I'll be a willing guinea pig in the beta period if I can ;)

PS - NoData is once again going to prove its worth on a forthcoming trip to Germany, it's been useful before and I'm sure it'll be useful again! Much kudos due.

[Guest michehrlich]

Just curious - any reason? I mean I know not every piece of software is perfect for every person, but we do try so I'm always looking for feedback.

--

Alex Kac

CEO/Founder Web information Solutions, Inc.

http://webis.net/

As you say, it's a personal thing. Since you ask, however, I am happy to give you my feedback, since I DID try Pocket Informant and was disappointed (not suicidally so -- I just committed uninstall... or tried, rather).

For me, the Pocket Informant suite doesn't give me anything that I need. It offers lots of different ways of arranging and viewing PIM information, which might be great for many people, but, unless I am mistaken, it doesn't add any actual functional capabilities -- i.e., actual calendar operations -- that aren't there in the native PIM apps. And given that your PIM apps were considerably slower to launch than the native ones, and that I really like the clean simple look of the native ones, I decided to forego PI. (I've got to say I was also a little unhappy with all the residue left behind after an uninstall. One can clean most of it up using other tools, but still, it's not cool.)

If you were to offer a Calendar product whose main purpose is to support the most convenient and intuitive one-handed navigation of Calendar on Pocket PC devices, with a nice clean simple interface but things like, for example, being able to use the D-pad to navigate from day to day (up and down and side to side) in month and year views, then that would be really cool (at the moment up and down in your Calendar app skips months, just like in the native app, which is incredibly frustrating when all you want to do is go, say, from one Thursday to the Thursday just below it in a given month).

In sum: business users need a quick, clean, easy-to-use, one-hand-supporting, capable-but-simple Calendar. At the moment, the native WM calendar app is still the best. But something to make the Pocket PC experience navigationally more like the SmartPhone experience (but of course with the additional functionality available in Pocket PC) would be nice, for when one is in the car or using the other hand to hold a land-line phone to one's ear or to carry one's laptop bag...

[Guest michehrlich]

That would be a major issue. We would not be able to ask people to install .NET CF 2.0. We must be able to support whatever is on a stock WM2003 PPC or WM5 Smartphone and up.

I'm not a developer but to me that sounds like a business decision, not a technical necessity. And to be honest I don't understand it as a business decision. Think about it: there are of course still some WM2003 devices out there (although they're getting pretty old by now). But even so, the kind of people who are still happy to be using WM2003 today are clearly not that concerned about being up to date, so they are not going to be interested in "AppToDate" anyway. One or two, perhaps, but I'd say it's not worth putting that constraint on Paul for this product.

[Guest johncody]

I'm not a developer but to me that sounds like a business decision, not a technical necessity. And to be honest I don't understand it as a business decision. Think about it: there are of course still some WM2003 devices out there (although they're getting pretty old by now). But even so, the kind of people who are still happy to be using WM2003 today are clearly not that concerned about being up to date, so they are not going to be interested in "AppToDate" anyway. One or two, perhaps, but I'd say it's not worth putting that constraint on Paul for this product.

Only WM6 devices have CF 2.0 pre-installed in ROM. So even WM5 devices (not just wm2003) would require the user to install a 5MB CAB file to get CF 2 installed on their device - which can cause a ton of support issues, mainly due the memory requirments of CF 2.0 and the large 5MB CF 2.0 runtime CAB being impractical to install OTA. So, requiring CF 2.0 would effect all WM5 devices too.

Edited September 6, 2007 by johncody

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

It's not that major to write against CF1 instead in this instance...

P

[Guest Pr0sper]

I'm in for Smartphone testing if needed ;)

[Guest PayableOnDeath]

I'll volunteer to test.

I'm using WM2003 on an Axim X5. Doesn't seem like too many people are using anything older than that.

Should be a good test of backward compatibility! ;)

I can beat that :wub: i still have a O2 XDA 1 Still on Pocket PC 2002 :D not like there is much on there other than tomtom, not a lot of programs to test with :D

[Guest akac]

Sorry for taking this off topic, you can email me privately at alex @ .com if you prefer.

As you say, it's a personal thing. Since you ask, however, I am happy to give you my feedback, since I DID try Pocket Informant and was disappointed (not suicidally so -- I just committed uninstall... or tried, rather).

For me, the Pocket Informant suite doesn't give me anything that I need. It offers lots of different ways of arranging and viewing PIM information, which might be great for many people, but, unless I am mistaken, it doesn't add any actual functional capabilities -- i.e., actual calendar operations -- that aren't there in the native PIM apps. And given that your PIM apps were considerably slower to launch than the native ones, and that I really like the clean simple look of the native ones, I decided to forego PI. (I've got to say I was also a little unhappy with all the residue left behind after an uninstall. One can clean most of it up using other tools, but still, it's not cool.)

Actually, we do offer a lot of functions that the built in apps don't do - specifically actions and data. Its not just a pretty face ;) For example, we offer regenerating tasks, priorities on tasks (ABC/123), we offer task percentage completion, icons, colors, the ability to link between data, journaling, creating appts/tasks from contacts, appointment completion, encryption, converting tasks to appts and vice versa, breaking appt recurring series in two, and I can go on and on :wub:

As for uninstalls, let me know what we don't clean up. As far as I know, the only thing we don't remove is data - PI databases, Custom Views you create, and icons. Other than data you create, we remove *everything* that I'm aware of. I strongly believe in cleaning up everything. But at the same time we don't want to delete people's data. Uninstalling Word won't delete Word docs or templates.

If you were to offer a Calendar product whose main purpose is to support the most convenient and intuitive one-handed navigation of Calendar on Pocket PC devices, with a nice clean simple interface but things like, for example, being able to use the D-pad to navigate from day to day (up and down and side to side) in month and year views, then that would be really cool (at the moment up and down in your Calendar app skips months, just like in the native app, which is incredibly frustrating when all you want to do is go, say, from one Thursday to the Thursday just below it in a given month).

I think we do that now! Yes, up/down goes between months because otherwise there is no easy one-handed way to go between months. When did you last use PI? Rev 1-4 kept adding more and more one handed use features and Rev 4 is very very good.

Now its not perfect, but that should be coming in PI8 because we're redesigning the UI there and one of the requirements is every single part of PI is one handed in an easy to use way, not just tacked on. So we've redesigned many elements. Not only that, but we've made the UI more scalable so that you can start off with PI without all the extra stuff in the UI and then bring features in as you want them. More about that when we announce PI8.

In sum: business users need a quick, clean, easy-to-use, one-hand-supporting, capable-but-simple Calendar. At the moment, the native WM calendar app is still the best. But something to make the Pocket PC experience navigationally more like the SmartPhone experience (but of course with the additional functionality available in Pocket PC) would be nice, for when one is in the car or using the other hand to hold a land-line phone to one's ear or to carry one's laptop bag...

I have to disagree the native WM calendar app is the best. I find it barely usable. Especially its month view. That is one reason it starts up so fast...its easier to startup when you do almost nothing. One other reason it starts up so fast is that it also has almost no options. Nothing to configure. Just pre-built resources that work just one way. The moment you want to customize things you have to start building dynamically created things, not just blocks of predefined resources.

PI is meant to be running all the time so startup speed, while something we *are* working on today, is not as critical as making the UI better.

[Guest famewolf]

I just wanted to point out that rom builders could also use this tool..by providing a xml file or cab with xml in it you could be alerted when your favorite rom comes out with a new release such as when XM6R2a when to XM6R3 on the wizard. I don't know that I would want to download the 50 meg file OTA but I would like to know about it.

[Guest House OF Sinz]

umm ya i would definately use software like this. update all my stuff in one shot would be great. im willing to test out almost anything. i got moto Q silver, still running on 5.0 blah. but hey if the updater can work on this then anything is possible.

[Guest griffin911]

I'm certainly not a developer, but I have been hoping for something like this for a long time.

I see you have gotten Alex from WebIS on board, now just get the SBSH folks on board and I'm ready to help you test!!!

[Guest touficjohn]

I'm in for testing too!

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

I'm off on hols for a short while, but this is on the way ;)

I'm very pleased by many pledges of support both on here and via email, from some VERY respected companies!

P

[Guest Barabbas]

I embrace your idea Paul. I have a lot of aplications, both small and large. And getting tired of having a textfile with the URL to each prog and going through this file now and then to look for changes.

BTW. of the type of feedback you ask for Im the non-developer part ;)