Post by Techie007 on Jan 24, 2016 22:31:25 GMT -6
A developer is so frustrated by the Windows 10 app store, he's telling people to stop writing Windows apps
I don't even know where to begin. The Windows Store is an epic failure, and issues like the above are definitely not helping its improvement. I know that as a developer myself, I am appalled at the Metro/XAML programming framework. And the .NET framework. Nope, I'm staying with native Win32, thank you very much! Much faster, much more capable, much more efficient.
There have been numerous Android/iOS apps I've wanted to run, only to find out that they were not supported on Windows. I've even installed Andy (an Android emulator) to run some of them. Then, there are the ones that are supported on all three platforms, but the Windows version is usually of much lower quality than the Android or iOS versions of the same app.
And then, several times I went to the Windows Store just to add some functionality to my tablet (i.e. no specific app in mind), I was hugely disappointed at the lack of quality options, lots of junkware and bloatware., and of the few that caught my attention, the extreme bugginess of the software.
Case in point: Just recently, I wanted to use my tablet as a gentle alarm clock. . . you know, just like iOS and Android users do all the time. I ended up downloading about 10 different apps. Shocker: Most of them could not even wake the tablet from Connected Standby to ring the alarm! Of those that could, most of them were almost unusuably buggy, crashing, parts of the interface not working, or being almost impossible to use due to interface sizing issues on my touch screen. Of the couple remaining apps that I could actually get to work, none of them had a even remotely user-friendly interface, or did not have the gradual fade-in feature that I was looking for.
In addition, none of the apps used my tablet's volume control to control the alarm volume! As a typical tablet, it isn't that loud. What's worse, I regularly use headphones on it, which means that I usually have the volume set somewhere in the 20% range. At 20%, the alarm is just audible though the tablet speakers, and I'd have to remember to set the volume to 100% before going to bed. What a pain!
For months, developers have been complaining about a big problem with Microsoft's Windows 10 app store: Their apps never show up in the search engine. At least one of them says the situation is so bad, he thinks no one should write new Windows 10 apps.
That coder is Nikolaus Gebhardt, who has been writing apps since the early 2000s. Earlier this week, he grew so frustrated, he wrote a post called "Why you should not develop apps for Windows 10". It went viral on Reddit.
"Since Windows 10 arrived, the sales of all of my apps, which have been very low compared to other apps stores, have gone down significantly, nearly to zero (even the one I upgraded to Windows 10)," he wrote. "And it is not surprising that this is the case: You cannot find my apps anywhere in the app store. Unless you know the exact name of my app, you won't find it. You can type any of the keywords my apps have in their title, description or even in the list of keywords submitted to the store, and it won't list my apps," he explained.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has published a post advising developers on how to get their apps found on the Windows 10 app store which includes advice like, "Make sure your app stands out and has compelling capabilities" and "create an original app. Make sure you own the name, brand, icon and content." The implication is that developers who complain might just need to write better apps, or tag them better, or follow the app store rules better.
That coder is Nikolaus Gebhardt, who has been writing apps since the early 2000s. Earlier this week, he grew so frustrated, he wrote a post called "Why you should not develop apps for Windows 10". It went viral on Reddit.
"Since Windows 10 arrived, the sales of all of my apps, which have been very low compared to other apps stores, have gone down significantly, nearly to zero (even the one I upgraded to Windows 10)," he wrote. "And it is not surprising that this is the case: You cannot find my apps anywhere in the app store. Unless you know the exact name of my app, you won't find it. You can type any of the keywords my apps have in their title, description or even in the list of keywords submitted to the store, and it won't list my apps," he explained.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has published a post advising developers on how to get their apps found on the Windows 10 app store which includes advice like, "Make sure your app stands out and has compelling capabilities" and "create an original app. Make sure you own the name, brand, icon and content." The implication is that developers who complain might just need to write better apps, or tag them better, or follow the app store rules better.
There have been numerous Android/iOS apps I've wanted to run, only to find out that they were not supported on Windows. I've even installed Andy (an Android emulator) to run some of them. Then, there are the ones that are supported on all three platforms, but the Windows version is usually of much lower quality than the Android or iOS versions of the same app.
And then, several times I went to the Windows Store just to add some functionality to my tablet (i.e. no specific app in mind), I was hugely disappointed at the lack of quality options, lots of junkware and bloatware., and of the few that caught my attention, the extreme bugginess of the software.
Case in point: Just recently, I wanted to use my tablet as a gentle alarm clock. . . you know, just like iOS and Android users do all the time. I ended up downloading about 10 different apps. Shocker: Most of them could not even wake the tablet from Connected Standby to ring the alarm! Of those that could, most of them were almost unusuably buggy, crashing, parts of the interface not working, or being almost impossible to use due to interface sizing issues on my touch screen. Of the couple remaining apps that I could actually get to work, none of them had a even remotely user-friendly interface, or did not have the gradual fade-in feature that I was looking for.
In addition, none of the apps used my tablet's volume control to control the alarm volume! As a typical tablet, it isn't that loud. What's worse, I regularly use headphones on it, which means that I usually have the volume set somewhere in the 20% range. At 20%, the alarm is just audible though the tablet speakers, and I'd have to remember to set the volume to 100% before going to bed. What a pain!