n the old days, building mobile applications involved using the ASP.NET mobile controls which were a subset of the larger ASP.NET. ASP.NET developers had to learn new concepts (for instance, using <mobile:> instead of <asp:> tags), and mobile developers had fewer specialized controls. However, the mobile controls did have a very powerful Adaptive Rendering model that enabled mobile Web developers to build device-independent applications. One set of code could target more than 230 devices and browsers.

Unified Controls Model
With ASP.Net 2.0, Microsoft merges the earlier ASP.NET and the mobile controls model. You now have one Unified controls model which lets you build both Web and mobile Web applications for any mobile device, at one go. All the controls available in ASP.Net 2.0 are now mobile aware. The Adaptive Rendering model has been extended to all the controls. There's no longer a need to learn two separate models and use two separate sets of controls.

Trying It Out
Start VS.NET 2005 Beta 1 and create an ASP.NET Web project. A default.aspx file is created for you. Check the Toolbox, to see the full range of available ASP.NET controls. One of the new controls is the Dynamic Image control. Drop the Dynamic Image control on the page.