Are there any "best practices" on cross-device development?
- by vstrien
Developing for smartphones in the way the industry is currently doing is relatively new. Of course, there has been enterprise-level mobile development for several decades. The platforms have changed, however. Think of:
from stylus-input to touch-input (different screen res, different control layout etc.)
new ways of handling multi-tasking on mobile platforms (e.g. WP7's "tombstoning")
The way these platforms work aren't totally new (iPhone has been around for quite awhile now for example), but at the moment when developing a functionally equal application for both desktop and smartphone it comes down to developing two applications from ground up.
Especially with the birth of Windows Phone with the .NET-platform on board and using Silverlight as UI-language, it's becoming appealing to promote the re-use of (parts of the UI). Still, it's fairly obvious that the needs of an application on a smartphone (or tablet) are very different compared to the needs of a desktop application. An (almost) one-on-one conversion will therefore be impossible.
My question: are there "best practices", pitfalls etc. documented about developing "cross-device" applications (for example, developing an app for both the desktop and the smartphone/tablet)?
I've been looking at weblogs, scientific papers and more for a week or so, but what I've found so far is only about "migratory interfaces".
