A year has passed since the original Ministry of Railways promised a mobile ticket-purchasing app called "Palm 12306," yet there is still no sign of it. Meanwhile, several counterfeit versions of the ticket-purchasing software have emerged. However, for safety considerations, it is advised that these applications should not be installed.
In fact, accessing 12306 via a mobile phone to book train tickets is also possible, although the user experience is somewhat poorer.
The official Weibo account of Microsoft China Windows Phone today pointed out in a comment on a netizen's blog post that the IE10 browser built into Windows Phone 8 shares a core with the desktop version. Not only can you install the root certificate of www.12306.cn on the IE browser of a Windows Phone 8 mobile phone, but you can also purchase tickets directly.