BRIGHTON, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Matchbox Mobile, pioneers of custom software and application development, have enabled users of the Zune HD touch-screen digital media player to send and receive email, by being the first to develop an Exchange email client for the device on behalf of Microsoft.
The development of the email client presented a unique challenge. Zune HD was primarily conceived as a media consumption device, but, in response to Microsoft Zune customers, evolved into something far bigger. This meant that unlike traditional mobile device application development, creating software for Zune HD is significantly more complex.
As the creator of the official Facebook and Twitter applications for Zune HD, Matchbox Mobile was the natural choice when Microsoft decided to develop an email client for Zune HD. The email client needed to support not only Windows Live Hotmail, but also Exchange and Gmail. Users expected to be able to read and respond to their email on the device for all these services. Yet the email client, with its lists, pages and user controls, had to be built using Zune’s XNA SDK – which was primarily designed for making games rather than standard applications.
On the XNA platform there are no standard controls such as lists, buttons or text entry fields which could be utilized in the development. Instead, Matchbox had to create each element. For a user interface-intensive application such as an email client, with its many complex lists and structured views on data, this presented quite a challenge. Further limitations existed in the storage required for the over-the-air specifications and a very limited HTTP and HTTPS programming interface.
Matchbox approached the design challenge by referencing the Windows Phone user interface, and mapped this back to the Zune HD version of Metro (which was itself the precursor of Windows Phone’s design language).
“This was a complicated development challenge,” said Dave McLauchlan, Senior Business Development Manager Microsoft Zune. “We knew we needed an expert team whose experience and technical abilities were world class, if we were to succeed in giving Zune HD users email functionality. Matchbox’s past development efforts for Zune HD and Windows Phone indicated that they were the right team for the job, and the resulting application proved that we made the right choice in asking them to deliver what was an extremely complex project.”
Simon Hamilton-Ritchie, CEO of Matchbox Mobile added: “Of all the developments that we have worked with Microsoft on, this was by far the most complex. But, in a market where it’s vital to continuously innovate, our technical excellence came into its own. Our internal development process enabled the entire development to be completed in just four months, including six weeks of beta testing.”
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About Matchbox Mobile:
Matchbox Mobile is a software developer and consultancy that specializes in mobile and embedded devices. Matchbox has over 12 years experience in developing applications for mobile operators, device makers, independent software vendors and platform developers.