Honeymoon for developers and Windows Marketplace for Mobile may be over
Among the flurry of on-device application distribution channels currently in the works, Windows Marketplace for Mobile may be among those that will struggle for quality content once reaching market. Could this be a product of Windows Mobile’s relatively small market share or lack of developer interest? Most certainly not; any Windows Mobile user will tell you about the huge abundance of great WinMo apps out there. Microsoft, maker of Windows — the world’s most widely embraced platform as far as third-party development is concerned — has apparently decided its bottom line is more important than playing nice with mobile platform developers. Pulling what could be a page from the Handango playbook, the company has incorporated a series of questionable policies that seem to highlight Microsoft’s interest in dollars and cents far outranking its interest in encouraging the very developers it hopes will populate its mobile money maker.
In a nutshell, developers get five free submissions to the Marketplace each year while subsequent submissions will run $99 a pop. A nice seemingly nice gesture, until you get to the part where each and every revision of an app will count as a new submission! In other words, new versions of an app will not only count towards a dev’s five free passes but each new version will cost the developer $99 to submit. Crazy. Rather than worry about immediately recouping internal app review costs, perhaps Microsoft should consider encouraging revisions — or, you know, encouraging developers to make their apps better and add features that could potentially improve sales.
Maybe they’re making new revisions count as new submissions so developers will try harder to get their app near perfect before releasing it? Instead of releasing a buggy app that takes 20 revisions to get everything worked out…
boygenius, dont turn like engadget or gizmodo.
this is the deal, make the app right the first try and its no issue.
MS will actually look at it for you and test it!
and give you feedback to fix it!
thats priceless?
so thats one app, once you make money you make another app!
and after 5 times you should be paid!
so paying $99 again for another app should be no big deal!
also, they dont charge to update an app.
and they have it worked out so we(winmo users) get the updates.
Why would MS try NOT to screw someone?
They do it every day to the consumer by putting out buggy software, and now they are screwing developers. Maybe this time they won’t try to steal something as important as DOS.
I say good job. There will be some quality apps hopefully, and they won’t need to be upgraded to a .1 a day after it’s release.
@boogereater: Why would they hold their developers to that standard when Microsoft themselves can’t seem to do that?
I agree with Trev. Microsoft does not follow those standards but they want us the little guys to be perfect on the first release.
I completely agree. At first glance it DOES look like MS is trying to run to the bank with developers’ money; but in practice, if you let coders submit multiple revisions, they will NEVER finish, and you will always have a poor product.
In order to prevent this, you give your coders a SET scope of functionality, and LIMITED releases. Forces them to get their RELEASED code right which is what Microsoft wants.
That right there makes the Apple App store look like heaven for developers.
How much are the MS fart apps going to cost?
That would certainly discourage modifying apps in response to feedback. Or adding features. Or fixing minor bugs and tightening performance. One of the great things about the iPhone app store is watching apps evolve from good to great in response to user feedback. I’ve had programs that have been through a dozen versions already, and have evolved into something really great.
MOST of the applications on the AppStore (Apple) are absolute garbage. Microsoft is letting developers know, that they expect applications to be READY for a commercial release; not BETA testing.
Perhaps, in order to appease both the FARTmachine SW Programmers and the legitimate developers, they will have an actual BETA area where you can have 1000’s of different versions where people can risk their devices to whim of shoddy programming (or explore the latest features).
Ehhh, double edged MS… At least lower the submission fee a bit more.
Most of the Windows Mobile apps are junk too, though at least when you download an iPhone app you know it’ll run on your phone. Yeah, there’s some decent apps at Handango (and they’re far costlier than iPhone apps) but other than that, it’s largely ugly looking shareware that may not even work for your hardware or OS version. But then, remember Sturgeon’s Law: “Ninety percent of EVERYTHING is crap”.
This isn’t going to magically prevent programmers from releasing apps with bugs though. This WILL discourage developers from fixing all but the most major bugs, or responding to user feedback. It’s been suggested that developers can always make revisions available on their own websites. It puts the burden on the enduser, who largely won’t bother. The end result: folks will wonder why Windows Mobile apps are buggier and clunkier than apps on competing platforms.
aleis: As we all know, an error with a piece of software has never been discovered after leaving the testing phase. Never, not once. Not in the history of the universe, known or otherwise.
I can’t pretend to be much of a Microsoft apologist on this one. It just doesn’t seem to be a great decision on the face of it. However, unlike the iPhone, WinMo phones can download stuff from damn near anywhere. It appears that Microsoft is saying something along the lines of, “You can get your WinMoFart apps from some other bullshit source. If it’s coming from our Marketplace, you’re going to put some effort into it.”
Take a deep breath, and look at that last sentence. Is that really something that you’re completely against? I’m as quick to acknowledge Microsoft’s shortcoming as anyone else, but that actually seems like a good idea.
You may now return to your Two Minutes Hate.
“You can get your WinMoFart apps from some other bullshit source. If it’s coming from our Marketplace, you’re going to put some effort into it.”
It’s good of Microsoft to try to protect users from things they shouldn’t want, I guess. But there WILL be fart apps in the Windows Marketplace though, because they SELL. They’ll be buggier though.
By the way, as a former satisified Tilt owner who now users an iPhone, I’ve gotta say, there sure are a TON of great programs available for the iPhone. And because they’re right at my fingertips, I’ve bought a lot more apps than I did for my Tilt. iPhone users are manic impulse app buyers.
I think MS is trying to expand its OS development practices to mobile app developers. Build a beta, sell it, get the feedback and in 12 months release the next beta, charge the customer and then repeat the cycle endlessly…
What M$ needs to realize is that their marketplace isn’t the only place to get apps. Any developer can simply distribut the software themselves and avoid all the marketplace restrictions.
It was just a beautifull time to make it better. Android and iPhone (Pre too?): the future is yours. Definetelly