Manufacturers bundle software applications with H/PCs. Of the bundled applications, two contain open APIs for manipulating the data used by the bundled applications: Inbox, a mail application, and Contacts, a contacts database application. Such APIs, unique to Windows CE, turn the bundled applications into back-end engines that facilitate rapid application development on H/PCs.
The mail API allows you to build applications that work with Inbox. The address store API allows you to build applications that work with the Contacts information manager. This API exposes functions for adding, sorting, modifying, and deleting records that appear in Contacts.