Web Browser support Windows Embedded vs Windows CE vs Windows Mobile? [closed]

Question

I am developing a web based inventory solution for a client and there will be handheld mobile computers involved. I've never developed a web app that has been run on a browser on one of these devices. The devices we are looking at have one of the following OS:

1. Windows Embedded 6.5
2. Windows CE 5.0 or 6.0
3. Windows Mobile

My questions are:

1. Do all of these come with some version of Internet Explorer
2. If so, does that version of IE support things like: javascript? JQuery (UI, AJAX calls)

Any experience or recommendations on any of these OS choices, pros, cons?

Loggerhead

Use Opera. IE-Mobile's slogun should've been: It Just Doesn't Work :-) – Heise

Answer 1

No, they do not have the same version of IE. All of them support a subset of javascript, but what they support differs between them and I'm not aware of any document that lists what is (or more importantly, what isn't) supported.

There are some subjective lists, for example [jQueryMobile gives WinMo 5.2 a grade of "C"1. Basically it's a story of "don't assume anything will be there. Test, test, test."

Bauman

Answer 2

I bet you won't find any Windows Mobile user today who seriously uses his phone to browse the web using Internet Explorer Mobile.

Opera Mobile runs on all Windows Mobile devices that I've had over the past 10 years, and the last 6 years or so it came pre-installed with every phone that I had. It's a pretty decent browser. Most popular JavaScript frameworks even work, as long as they don't use too much html5, css3 or SVG trickery.

Internet Explorer Mobile should be entirely ignored, especially if you plan on doing client-side scripting. www.microsoft.com and live.com don't even load with that crappy browser.

If somehow you're forced to develop a dynamic website for IE mobile, you're pretty much screwed. I've done it in the past. Please don't make the memories come back. It left permanent scratches on my soul.

Heise

My bet is that he's been tasked with creating a web app that does inventory management and will be run on Motorola, Symbol and/or Intermec. He's not looking to generally browse, but to target a specific set of devices for a specific set of functions. That said, I'd still push to just write an actual app that runs on the device and connects via REST or whatever to the server. Creating a web app is going to be a huge one-off time expenditure, with little re-use. – Bauman

@Bauman Yes, you are correct. I need to create a web app that can be browsed to via a browser on a Motorola or Symbol device. We've decided not to create a client server type of application that runs on the device itself for ease of deployment and maintenance. – Loggerhead

@Wouter Good point, I can install Opera Mobile or Mini on a Windows mobile device I'd guess. – Loggerhead

Answer 3

as Chris (ctacke) states, these plaforms do not support the same browsing functionality and unfortunately there is no true documenation of what they support and what not.

If it is OK for you, you probably go with a 3rd party browser like ZetaKey or ... But you need to have control on which browser is used by the customers.

You can also use device emulators for Windows Mobile 6, and Windows CE5 (I dont know any emulator for Windows Embedded of Windows CE6) and test your code within the emulators. AFAIR the browser engine with the less functionality is Windows Mobile 5 (and before).

If I would have to choose for a mobile device OS, I would go with Windows CE6.

regards

Josef

Angilaangina

Answer 4

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread and I hope you managed to find a viable solution. We are going through this at the moment and as mentioned it is for a warehousing solution using the Motorola (or Zebra) scanners. I looked at Opera Mobile, Opera Mini, IE 6, Zeta Key and Zeta Key Lite. I wasn't overly impressed with any of them to be honest. I then fell upon Enterprise Browser. This is a browser developed by Zebra for their mobile devices. It comes in flavours for Android, Windows Mobile and Windows CE. We are using Windows Mobile 6.5 and it has 2 options, Webkit or IE based. The Webkit option appears to be blindingly fast.

However one other mention is that if you plan on enabled/disabling the scanner itself from your web app, unfortunately IE is the only one I have found so far that can interact with Active X controls. With that said though Enterprise Browser has a multitude of configuration options within an XML file, and I haven't had a chance to go through them all yet.

Anyway I hope this helps anyone that is in a similar situation.

Undertaker

Answer 5

Tau Technologies(the maintainer of RhoMobile platform) introduces a WebKit-based browser engine for WinCE/WM

• Full HTML5 compliance
• High performance
• Compatible with WinCE 5/6, Compact 7 and Windows Mobile
• Utilizes Cairo Graphics with FreeType support for superb rendering
• Can be built in third-party products on the licensing basis

Regards, Konstantin Rybas

Genera

Answer 6

I'd also like to share my findings with industrial mobile devices. We tried to use an old Motorola (formerly Symbol and now Zebra) MC 9094 device with Windows Mobile 5.0 for a warehousing solution. The goal is to use a web site for gathering production data without device or vendor specific solutions. I'm currently developing the ERP solution for my customer with ASP.NET MVC 5 and jQuery. It's been very near to use jQuery mobile for the mobile device web site. The problem is, that the PocketIE in WinMo 5.0 is very old and does not support any JavaScript. We decided to abandon the usage of Motorola MC9094 device. I will test with a newer device the CipherLab CP55, it comes with Windows Embedded Compact 7 and Internet Explorer Embedded, which does support JavaScript and even some version/combination of jQuery and jQuery Mobile.

Currently I'm trying to find the best/newest combination of these both. For now I'm using another device, the NordicID Medea, which also runs WEC 7. The web site works with jQuery Mobile 1.3.2 along with jQuery 1.12.4 even with AJAX calls and jQuery validate.

Edit: My experience with these devices and operating systems is that you should always prefer Windows CE (or Windows Embedded Compact). Windows Mobile capabilities always are very restricted and limited.

Solidarity