Developing Location Aware Applications for Windows Mobile

Though I’ve posted on the Windows Mobile team blog before, it occurs to me that I’ve never taken the time to introduce myself. My name is Joshua Partlow and, like Jim Causey, I’m a member of the Windows Mobile documentation team. I have a background in computer engineering and a passion for mobile technology.

A few days ago Jim discussed the new version of Live Search Mobile and some of the nifty ways it takes advantage of GPS. I thought I’d follow up on his post by pointing out some great resources to help you get started developing your own applications that take advantage of GPS. Recently MSDN magazine published an article by Christopher Mitchell entitled “Use GPS And Web Maps For Location-Aware Apps”. The article, available for online viewing, is a great walkthrough of developing a location-aware task list application.

Another great online resource is a webcast by Windows Mobile Community PM Constanze Roman and MVP Maarten Struys. As part of their 24 Hours of Windows Mobile Application Development series, Constanze and Maarten presented a webcast on location-aware applications. The webcast discusses how you can use the GPS Intermediate Driver to access GPS information from inside your managed applications. Constanze and Maarten also present how to use the FakeGPS utility to test location-enabled applications without needing access to physical GPS hardware. The great part about the webcast is you can follow along with the code, which is available for download from the MSDN Code Gallery.

If you want even more details, you can also head to the Windows Mobile Developer Center and take a look at the Windows Mobile documentation. A good starting place is the topic Creating Applications that Utilize GPS.