

Windows 8 Store: with 99 Metro Apps, is it Behind Schedule? - gspyrou
http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2012/04/13/windows-8-store-with-99-metro-apps-is-it-behind-schedule/

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nigelsampson
The Windows 8 store isn't even open for developer submission yet, seems a
little early to compare size or quality.

I imagine once we see a Release Candidate and the store open it will be a
different story, but still far too early.

Here's a post about the process of getting into the store in the future.

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jaimer/archive/2012/04/19/wanted-
gre...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jaimer/archive/2012/04/19/wanted-great-
windows-8-metro-style-apps.aspx)

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ja27
Well, how many iPad apps were available on the iTunes store 6 months before
the iPad was released?

It's not due to a lack of developers. Microsoft developer evangelists and MVPs
are out on the road holding Windows 8 developer camps. We had 100 people at
mine and it was "sold out" quickly. At our camp an evangelist said Microsoft
was being /very/ picky about what they allowed in the store now. What's neat
about Microsoft is that they said that if you think you have an app that is
really ready for the store now, just get in touch with a developer evangelist
and they'll help you out.

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/edvangelist/archive/2012/03/28/windo...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/edvangelist/archive/2012/03/28/windows-8-developer-
camps-schedule.aspx)

~~~
outside1234
is there really not a developer camp in Silicon Valley? help us help you!

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vette982
The Win8 Store isn't even open to all submissions at this point. Microsoft has
only issued a handful of keys to selected developers, which allows them to
submit apps. Without this key, you can't even make a developer account.

If you don't have a key, you can still develop Metro apps with VS 2011 Beta
and test them using the Windows app certification utility that's included to
see if the app would hypothetically pass.

I suppose this limits the growth of the Win8 Store at first, but I'm still
surprised that there are only 99 apps given how many keys were issued. Also, I
believe Microsoft is funding the development of apps by some popular app
developers for iOS and Android.

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wcdolphin
This seems to be a very poor comparison, remarkably so in fact. You are
comparing a new ecosystem to that of one which required absolutely no change
(and in fact, is still dominated by applications built/designed for an iPhone,
but stretch miserably to work on iPads).

There are lots of legitimate challenges that Windows faces with this push, and
lots of interesting interactions between these issues, but you fail to outline
any of them.

To the many posters who have not yet written application for Windows 8, let me
assure you that for the vast majority of applications which are currently
available on Windows, building the application using the new SDK will not only
be quicker, but also have much better products. You can also import almost all
of your old codebase, the main changes are with respect to asynchronous IO,
which creates a hugely different user experience, and of course poses
difficulties to developers who are less accustomed.

@Patrick Moorhead, is there any logic behind your choice of 5K as the number
of applications? It seems to have come out of the blue, and not from any
analysis.

Excuse me if I seem critical, I guess coming from HackerNews I was expecting
comments and insight.

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huhtenberg
100s of thousands of App Store items comprise largely of crap than appears to
be there only to push the app counter where it needs to be for Apple's
marketing purposes. If Microsoft is to release a two-click FartApp build
wizard, I'm sure they'll manage to catch up quite quickly.

In other words, I have this faint sliver of hope that Microsoft will get their
App Store right, in which case I'd gladly take a set of 99 decent apps over
Apple's wide selection of abysmality.

~~~
shinratdr
This is a pretty cynical and ridiculous view IMO. Why does it have to be some
nefarious move on the part of Apple? Isn't a much more logical reason that iOS
is attracting a lot of attention, and the vast majority of apps for any
platform are bad or amateur?

Also, if the WP7 store is any indication it will be sparse and most apps will
be of low quality. It's not a choice between vast and terrible and small and
focused. iOS has plenty of great apps too.

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KeyBoardG
These type of doom and gloom speculation articles are completely unnecessary.
We're 5 months out and given that MS has stated that all WP8 apps will run on
Win8, they're looking at ~100K apps in some form out of the gate.

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contextfree
They haven't even announced WP8 at all - at this point the only piece of
official info on WP8 (or rather "the next major version of WP") is that it
will run WP7.x apps. There have been no announcements of WP <-> W8 app
compatibility.

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awolf
There's definitely a tipping point here. As a mobile developer with my own
successful iPad apps I am watching this situation very closely. If it looks
like WM8 will get traction then I will scramble to be one of the first 1000 or
so developers to join Microsoft's ecosystem. However, if WM8 flops on tablets
as badly as Android did (or: has so far) then I'll be glad I saved my energy.

~~~
rollypolly
It's a chicken-or-the-egg problem. Microsoft should be contacting developers
like you and offering cold hard cash for writing apps for their ecosystem.

Sony did that for certain Vita developers. Vita is still a disappointment in
sales, but at least the devs don't feel burnt.

~~~
chrischen
They contacted me, tried very hard to convince me. Then when a higher up
person started talking and just as I was about to do it he tells me my app is
probably not a good fit because they want people to specifically build Metro-
style UIs that showcase it.

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nextparadigms
Android has 32,000 apps for tablets? That's very nice if true (plus all the
phone apps). I don't have a tablet, but I haven't heard of many updates on
this, and I thought the situation for tablet apps was a lot worse.

So then Windows 8 for tablets will come way behind both Android and the iPad
when it launches, just like it happened with WP7. Things don't look so good
for Microsoft right now.

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Zirro
While bad news for Microsoft, it's hard not to think about how much exposure
you as an app-developer would get in a store with only a hundred (or even a
thousand) apps.

This may be incentive enough to have a lot of developers creating apps during
the coming months (and ironically removing this incentive in the process).

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malkia
Just release the compiler for native code, and you would see a change.

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CobaltHex
this is windows 8 not windows phone 8 they're actually pushing native code
rather heavily.

