Windows Phone Thoughts: Add Some Zinc To Your Software: MDM Zinc For Pocket PC 2 Reviewed

Drawbacks & Limitations
Ah, nothing can ever be perfect, and while I've been very happy with the user experience with Zinc, there are a few drawbacks.

First, we should note that, up front, MDM admits that there may be performance issues. The following comes from the excellent Online Manual for Zinc:

"In addition, please bare in mind that a Pocket PC is just that... a Pocket PC! The PDA Device does not have the capabilities of a full desktop PC System which means that performance of heavily animated SWF's will be poor when compared to their desktop counterparts. Wherever possible, the inclusion of animation should be optimized as much as possible for Pocket PC Application Development."

Even being warned, I was still a bit disappointed at the performance of the Thoughtsball on my K-JAM. The device loaded the file in a reasonable amount of time, yet the animation from off-screen to on-screen and then the shake took a good amount of time (10-15 seconds for animation that should take around 3-4). Animation aside, I would imagine that performance would not be so dramatic an issue on a app that was made for input or a utility - but gaming may be a problem unless you're really willing to streamline your application and optimize for performance. It is also hard to pinpoint where the slowness in my tests was due to Zinc, due to my SWF, and due to my K-JAM's processor. The final verdict on performance? Test, test, and test some more before you roll out to end users, or be prepared for "It's so slow" comments. I suspect this is the case with all flash-on-Pocket PC situations.

Another limitation to some may be the price for the full version, although MDM has released a lite edition that lacks SQLCE support, encryption, and contains only a handful of {mdm}Script commands. But for those of you who just need a projector without the extra options, the lite version may be right up your alley.

Lastly, and this is really picky of me, the interface could use a bit more polishing. By polishing, I don't mean fade-in and fade-out menus or anything like that, but perhaps a bit more depth to the UI. The tab interface is nice, however, not all the tabs are visible all the time, and the buttons are not as explanatory as they could be. Like I said, it's picky, but it does make an impression on the user, and I think cleaning up the interface a bit may make a better impression.

Conclusions
In short, if you want to develop Flash applications for the Pocket PC, you will want to check out Zinc. I was blown away by the feature set, the incredibly easy configuration process, and the ability to customize my application as much or as little as I desired. While the price tag is a bit high, it is in line with other developer applications out there. I also found MDM's website and MDM's staff to be extremely helpful during the review process. Overall, I'd recommend using Zinc to package flash applications, with only a small list of changes I'd like to see in future releases.

Jon Westfall doesn't know if anyone actually reads these "about the author" blurbs at the ends of articles. If you're really interested in my work, check out my nearly-daily posts here at PPCT and my somewhat frequently updated blog at jonwestfall.com.