Recruiting Windows Store developers


  • :belt_onion:

    I'm currently attending a Microsoft event. The goal of one of the campaigns that Microsoft is running, is to register as many new Windows Store developers as possible. Since registration fees are refunded and Microsoft gives out a free mouse and a free T-shirt, I obviously wanted to participate.

    So in the past days I prepared and elaborated an idea that I thought would make a simple but useful application. When I arrived at the event, I immediately registered, went to the labs and told the proctors in the lab about my idea for my new application

    "No, that's not what we expect you to do," they replied, "you just have to modify this RSS Feed reader application that we have already prepared. Change the title and point it to the RSS feed of your blog, compile, upload it and that's it."

    So that's what I did. I modified the application that the proctors provided, tested it and once I was satisfied it was working I dutifully filled in all the forms to create the application in the Windows store and uploaded it to the store for certification.

    A few hours later I received a mail: "Your application could not be certified. The application does not appear to do anything useful."

    Well duh... But I'm keeping my free mouse.


  • Considered Harmful

    This makes me realize how good it is that apps on the store are moderated, so the store is not deluged by thousands of "RSS reader that only works for site X" apps.


  • :belt_onion:

    @joe.edwards said:

    This makes me realize how good it is that apps on the store are moderated, so the store is not deluged by thousands of "RSS reader that only works for site X" apps.
    On one side there is a team trying to guarantee quality and on the other side there are teams that need to make their targets of: "x number of new apps in the Store by the end of 2013". At least they succeeded in making me register as a Windows Store developer and guiding me through almost the entire process of getting an app into the store.This will make it a lot easier when I want to launch a real new app. I guess that's a mission accomplished for Microsoft...

     



  •  Woah... is this using MetroPress? Because I've been getting some slightly annoying correspondence about that from the MVP program. 

     

    First, they send an E-mail. "blah blah windows 8 is great, develop applications, we'll promote your app, hey here is something and instructions you can use to turn your blog into a windows 8 application, in case you find browsers too mainstream" It seemed interesting, so I ran through it. I originally backed away because the instructions want you to install a 2 year old plugin to the blog software (in this case wordpress). Eventually I muddled through and got it working. Then I learned that while I get a free Dev account and can even submit apps for "free" I still need to provide a Credit card. I don't have a credit card and even if I did I wouldn't be providing it.

     So I kinda forgot about that. Then out of nowhere, they send ANOTHER mail- basically saying- 'we haven't heard back on the whole converting your blog to a Win8 site, so rather than assume the obvious that you don't give a crap, we'll assume you really want to do this- despite your obvious lack of interest- and a technical specialist will follow up to see if they can provide assistance in converting your blog to a Windows 8 app should you require help.If you want to opt-out let us know by 4pm today, and let us know why.'

    If they manage to workaround the credit card requirement (the person I corresponded with said they'd look into it, which is probably code for "forget this guy"), now it seems that even if that goes through it's likely the app will simply not be approved at all. That would(or possibly will) be hilarious.




  •  @bjolling said:



    @joe.edwards said:
    This makes me realize how good it is that apps on the store are moderated, so the store is not deluged by thousands of "RSS reader that only works for site X" apps.
    On one side there is a team trying to guarantee quality and on the other side there are teams that need to make their targets of: "x number of new apps in the Store by the end of 2013". At least they succeeded in making me register as a Windows Store developer and guiding me through almost the entire process of getting an app into the store.This will make it a lot easier when I want to launch a real new app. I guess that's a mission accomplished for Microsoft...

     
    As a user of a Windows Phone 8, I'd have to say Windows Store is leaning to the "X apps on store" viewpoint rather then a quality threshhold, which is really, really disappointing.

    I Downloaded a free ad supported game titled "Zombies__d_day". It was a Plants vs Zombies-like game where you put down the pigs from Angry Birds to shoot the Angry Birds them-selves at Zombies (Which sprites I'm guessing stolen from another game). All animations are 2 sprites alternating. You also couldn't get enough resources to get past the second zombie, so you'd always die within 20~ seconds. The zombies also "walk" onto your plant menu, acting as it it's grass. It was the shittiest piece of crap I've seen that should not have been approved. Have a look!



  • @Adanine said:

    As a user of a Windows Phone 8, I'd have to say Windows Store is leaning to the "X apps on store" viewpoint rather then a quality threshhold, which is really, really disappointing.
     From what I have heard, the Windows 8 app store is much more discriminating than the Windows Phone store.  Plus, the windows phone store contains a lot of apps that were let in under Windows Phone 7 when they did not monitor the quality as much.

    Unfortunately, the screening process involves a high level of checks for code quality... like "will this perform and not slow other apps down", "does it clean up after itself", and "Is it going to harm the system".  Content quality is a bit more subjective.



  • @The Bytemaster said:

    @Adanine said:

    As a user of a Windows Phone 8, I'd have to say Windows Store is leaning to the "X apps on store" viewpoint rather then a quality threshhold, which is really, really disappointing.
     From what I have heard, the Windows 8 app store is much more discriminating than the Windows Phone store.  Plus, the windows phone store contains a lot of apps that were let in under Windows Phone 7 when they did not monitor the quality as much.

    Unfortunately, the screening process involves a high level of checks for code quality... like "will this perform and not slow other apps down", "does it clean up after itself", and "Is it going to harm the system".  Content quality is a bit more subjective.

    That explains as much. I'm hoping they look out for Content quality soon though. I'd love to support indie and first time app developers by going into the "New" section of the store and trying a few of the unreviewed games, but if I have to weed through trash like this...

     



  • @Adanine said:

    I Downloaded a free ad supported game titled "Zombies__d_day". It was a Plants vs Zombies-like game where you put down the pigs from Angry Birds to shoot the Angry Birds them-selves at Zombies (Which sprites I'm guessing stolen from another game). All animations are 2 sprites alternating. You also couldn't get enough resources to get past the second zombie, so you'd always die within 20~ seconds. The zombies also "walk" onto your plant menu, acting as it it's grass. It was the shittiest piece of crap I've seen that should not have been approved. Have a look!

    On the bright side, I'm sure the functionality to send your CC# and other private data to the Russian Mafia worked just fine.



  • @DaveK said:

    On the bright side, I'm sure the functionality to send your CC# and other private data to the Russian Mafia worked just fine.

    Am I the only one that uses one time CC#s?

    Now where can I get this free mouse?



  • @russ0519 said:

    Am I the only one that uses one time CC#s?

    Yes. Every credit card company invented them solely for your personal use. In fact, it turns out the world does revolve around you. What you do with this knowledge is left up to you (naturally), but I hope you are charitable as you rule the rest of us from your solid gold castle in the Bahamas.



  • @Adanine said:

    As a user of a Windows Phone 8, I'd have to say Windows Store is leaning to the "X apps on store" viewpoint rather then a quality threshhold, which is really, really disappointing.
    Can I blame Apple for this? After all, they’re the ones making such a big deal about the number of apps in their App Store. Never mind that WP8 just came out. Never mind that their App Store didn’t exist for the first year or so of the iPhone’s existance because Jobs thought the idea of apps on phones was stupid. No, WP sucks because the WP App Store doesn’t have eleventy-billion apps in it. WP may very well suck, but the number of apps isn’t the reason.



  • @Sir Twist said:

    WP may very well suck, but the number of apps isn’t the reason.


    That's true, WP sucks for all the other reasons :c)


  • Considered Harmful

    Joel Spolsky (who I'll agree jumped the shark years ago) wrote an article explaining how users won't adopt a platform unless there's software, and software publishers won't produce software for a platform unless there's a market (read: users). He calls it a chicken and egg problem, and suggests the best solution is for the new platform to have compatibility for an existing and better established platform (example was MS DOS had CP/M compatibility, which he gives the credit for DOS becoming so popular).

    Microsoft needs a lot of apps to have any hope of competing in the mobile space. They have sort of the right idea with .NET, I'm not sure about WinRT. Padding the store with fluff apps that are worthless is definitely not the way to go.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    Joel Spolsky (who I'll agree jumped the shark years ago)

    I find it hard to take anything Jeff Atwood takes seriously, even when he's 100% correct.  He likely jumped the shark even before Spolsky did.

     



  •  I like to think of Atwood's blog as being in perpetual time-stopped super-state above the shark.



  • @Sir Twist said:

    @Adanine said:

    As a user of a Windows Phone 8, I'd have to say Windows Store is leaning to the "X apps on store" viewpoint rather then a quality threshhold, which is really, really disappointing.
    Can I blame Apple for this? After all, they’re the ones making such a big deal about the number of apps in their App Store. Never mind that WP8 just came out. Never mind that their App Store didn’t exist for the first year or so of the iPhone’s existance because Jobs thought the idea of apps on phones was stupid. No, WP sucks because the WP App Store doesn’t have eleventy-billion apps in it. WP may very well suck, but the number of apps isn’t the reason.

    Windows has one entry in the store for an app, but that one entry can have "Try" and "Buy" options (Most of the time), whereas last I checked (A while ago), iPhone users did it via two entries: One "lite" and one "Paid". So are the Windows apps with try/buy counted twice in the app count? Second thought, I don't really care. I've never ran into a circumstance where it didn't have an app for what I wanted, and I always had a fairly healthy choice for apps, so meh on the App count.

    @TimeBandit said:

    That's true, WP sucks for all the other reasons :c)
    I'm curious, what other reasons? I've never had any issues with my Windows phone, and I quite like the UI and approach to app integration. Most reviews paint Windows Phones favourably but with a hindrance in the all-important App number. Note that I'm not trying to start a mobile phone argument!

     

     


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