The current Windows Mobile SDKs do. They offer more access than Android or iPhone and slightly less than Symbian.
The problem is, there are so many devices that developers have problems to make even the official APIs work on different phones.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RichL
Once again, don't believe Prince McLean's FUD.
What he says is that when the app is re-submitted because of rejection, you pay again. And he quotes the rules. You (and others above) are talking about application updates. Read carefully before playing the judge.
I wonder if Apple will eventually charge some money for reviews. But the money Apple makes from downloads of paid applications hopefully will make it easier to offset the review cost. Apple is driving to get volume, M$ is playing the quality trump card.
The current Windows Mobile SDKs do. They offer more access than Android or iPhone and slightly less than Symbian.
It's wrong. Once again, don't believe Prince McLean's FUD.
This Prince bloke is really really denigrating my opinion of AppleInsider with some of his recent FUDfest posts. There's just no class, and it doesn't really provide anything of value to the readers apart from confused flamefests in the comments.
Personally I think WinMo 6.5 will crash and burn due to being an out of date mobile platform with an out of date user interface. That's why I wouldn't develop for it. I have, in the past, developed Java apps for WinMo devices (running on IBM's J9 JVM), and thus have used the devices far too much for my personal liking, and they are primitive, clunky things. A new application launcher and some glitz doesn't fix those issues.
"Right now our product roadmaps didn't line up perfectly for us to snap to what they're doing [in the Windows Mobile Marketplace] or vice versa. That being said, we know people want things like this on their devices so we're going to build them ourselves, they're going to be super high-quality, and they're going to be free. Down the road if there's a way we can work with Windows Mobile or another group inside the company that's building an app store and take advantage of that, that's something we'll look into."
In other words:
"We don't know WTF we're doing."
As far as Prince Mclean goes . . . more power to him. The more MS gets trashed along with the third-rate products they foist on users, the better. Prince calls them as he sees them, and more often than not, the guy is right on the money.
According to the article, that is not how MS will be handling it. There is the yearly fee of $99, just like with Apple?s App Store, and then the per app submission of $99 for free or paid apps, regardless if the first app submission, a resubmission due rejection or just doing a bug update. Maybe it?s wrong because that sounds very hostile toward developers.
"Q: Do I need to pay the $99 fee again to submit an application update?
A: No. If your application has been previously certified and published in the catalog, you can submit subsequent updates without incurring any additional fees. The application update will be made available through Windows Marketplace for Mobile to all customers that have downloaded your application."
My how times change...does any one see the irony here? Remember way back when, when you would walk into compUSA and see isle after isle of Windows software and only a small shelf of Apple Software?
Apple fans, me included, would say, 'yeah, less software for Apple, but the software available is best in class, one choice of accounting software, one game choice (Myst) where Windows you had a lot more choice but most of it was crap!'
Now the roles are reversed in the Mobile Arena. Apple's App store has the most choice and I would have to agree, a lot of crap software. WinMobile will have a lot less choice, and irony of all ironies the few titles they have won't be that good mainly due to the WinMobile clunky platform!
Trouble is for MS the mobile market is the fastest growing market and MS is, yet again, reduced to making poor copies of Apple products/software innovations.
Anyway, I can see Apple's App store getting even bigger with Apps for the new Tablet and eventually Apps for AppleTV along the lines of App store for the iPhone. Huge opportunity there. MS's App Store perhaps....er....not so much!
Guess what the $99 submission screams out. Little to no free apps! Why would a developer spend time developing a free app, only to have to pay upwards of $99 to submit just once? If it gets rejected, even more money goes down the drain and the developer then sees it's not financially viable to give out the app for free.
Something is only a 'trump card' if it has strategic value to the situation at hand. For Microsoft to play 'the quality trump card' you are assuming they have a measure of quality in the first place.
Guess what the $99 submission screams out. Little to no free apps! Why would a developer spend time developing a free app, only to have to pay upwards of $99 to submit just once? If it gets rejected, even more money goes down the drain and the developer then sees it's not financially viable to give out the app for free.
Agreed, in a way it could attract the iPhone developers with Apps that have 'proven money makers.' This would benefit MS. I could see iPhone developers doing an analysis to see if they can make money on the MS App store. I mean, if they are making money with a proven money making iPhone App, $99 is not that much, especially if they are 'first' in the MS store. Me, personally, I would stay as far away from MS as I could.
As you say, why would a developer develop a free App for MS?
There's one big difference that Prince fails to point out - the traditional method of installing apps on WinMo will still be open to application developers. Don't like the $99 fee or the restrictions? Distribute your app through your website.
But that hasn't been a winning formula in the past. It obviously hasn't attracted the number of developers or apps to the platform as Microsoft had hoped in the past 10 years, otherwise they would be sitting pretty with no need for this marketplace initiative. There are other drawbacks to the DIY approach, such as additional expenses and piracy.
"Q: Do I need to pay the $99 fee again to submit an application update?
A: No. If your application has been previously certified and published in the catalog, you can submit subsequent updates without incurring any additional fees. The application update will be made available through Windows Marketplace for Mobile to all customers that have downloaded your application."
As I noted above, there is still confusion on this thread on two different cases:
- the re-submission of the app will be charged
- the submission of the update will NOT be charged
Still a high entry barrier IMO. If the "focusing on quality" is not just a marketing crap to excuse the minuscule number of the apps, and MS is making some QA, not just approval, then you might expect rejections. Nobody likes paying extra. $99 is not a lot of money, but before developers get to the point that they will pay those, they need to jump to the WinMo bandwagon in the first place. This policy may have more significant negative effect when evaluating the prospects of developing for WinMo than the actual developer expenses and meaningful profits for MS.
These $99 are more of a money for many countries outside US and Western Europe. I think the number of iPhone developers there is pretty small, because you need a Mac, and the macs are not popular, but for MS this is not the case. MS is loosing tens of thousands Chinese, Russian and Indian developers who could otherwise give WinMo a try, copying the most popular iPhone apps, if nothing else.
Guess what the $99 submission screams out. Little to no free apps! Why would a developer spend time developing a free app, only to have to pay upwards of $99 to submit just once? If it gets rejected, even more money goes down the drain and the developer then sees it's not financially viable to give out the app for free.
the biggest barrier to writing iphone apps is that you need a Mac. that's at least $1000.
$99 might sound like a lot but Visual Studio will run on any cheapo PC you can find from the last 5 years. you can even get Visual Studio Express for free from MSDN
the biggest barrier to writing iphone apps is that you need a Mac. that's at least $1000.
$99 might sound like a lot but Visual Studio will run on any cheapo PC you can find from the last 5 years. you can even get Visual Studio Express for free from MSDN
Remember there are many 'used' Macs out there there. A two or three year old Mac is still a great computer and will run the latest OS most times.
Something is only a 'trump card' if it has strategic value to the situation at hand. For Microsoft to play 'the quality trump card' you are assuming they have a measure of quality in the first place.
How did Apple compete when Microsoft was running all over them? They became a "premium" provider. They survived because they were able to deliver value. Microsoft is trying this to survive against the iPhone and Android. They have little to lose.
It's wrong. Once again, don't believe Prince McLean's FUD.
Do you think they changed the bold bit before or after Prince wrote the article this thread is based on?
It's obvious they changed it but when?
"Q: I previously heard that you only had 7 days to submit a free update. Has this changed?
A: Yes, we originally communicated that only application updates submitted within 7 days of their publish date would benefit from a free submission. After talking to the developer community and better understanding the dynamics and frequency of application updates, we have decided to extend the original 7-day window and make it permanent. This means that if an application has been previously approved in the marketplace the developer can submit updates to it without incurring any additional fees."
Comments
The current Windows Mobile SDKs do. They offer more access than Android or iPhone and slightly less than Symbian.
The problem is, there are so many devices that developers have problems to make even the official APIs work on different phones.
Once again, don't believe Prince McLean's FUD.
What he says is that when the app is re-submitted because of rejection, you pay again. And he quotes the rules. You (and others above) are talking about application updates. Read carefully before playing the judge.
The current Windows Mobile SDKs do. They offer more access than Android or iPhone and slightly less than Symbian.
It's wrong. Once again, don't believe Prince McLean's FUD.
This Prince bloke is really really denigrating my opinion of AppleInsider with some of his recent FUDfest posts. There's just no class, and it doesn't really provide anything of value to the readers apart from confused flamefests in the comments.
Personally I think WinMo 6.5 will crash and burn due to being an out of date mobile platform with an out of date user interface. That's why I wouldn't develop for it. I have, in the past, developed Java apps for WinMo devices (running on IBM's J9 JVM), and thus have used the devices far too much for my personal liking, and they are primitive, clunky things. A new application launcher and some glitz doesn't fix those issues.
"Applications that link to, incent users to download, or otherwise promote alternate marketplaces."
That's a bit rich considering they're advertising their store on an "alternate marketplace"!
"Right now our product roadmaps didn't line up perfectly for us to snap to what they're doing [in the Windows Mobile Marketplace] or vice versa. That being said, we know people want things like this on their devices so we're going to build them ourselves, they're going to be super high-quality, and they're going to be free. Down the road if there's a way we can work with Windows Mobile or another group inside the company that's building an app store and take advantage of that, that's something we'll look into."
In other words:
"We don't know WTF we're doing."
As far as Prince Mclean goes . . . more power to him. The more MS gets trashed along with the third-rate products they foist on users, the better. Prince calls them as he sees them, and more often than not, the guy is right on the money.
According to the article, that is not how MS will be handling it. There is the yearly fee of $99, just like with Apple?s App Store, and then the per app submission of $99 for free or paid apps, regardless if the first app submission, a resubmission due rejection or just doing a bug update. Maybe it?s wrong because that sounds very hostile toward developers.
"Q: Do I need to pay the $99 fee again to submit an application update?
A: No. If your application has been previously certified and published in the catalog, you can submit subsequent updates without incurring any additional fees. The application update will be made available through Windows Marketplace for Mobile to all customers that have downloaded your application."
Apple fans, me included, would say, 'yeah, less software for Apple, but the software available is best in class, one choice of accounting software, one game choice (Myst) where Windows you had a lot more choice but most of it was crap!'
Now the roles are reversed in the Mobile Arena. Apple's App store has the most choice and I would have to agree, a lot of crap software. WinMobile will have a lot less choice, and irony of all ironies the few titles they have won't be that good mainly due to the WinMobile clunky platform!
Trouble is for MS the mobile market is the fastest growing market and MS is, yet again, reduced to making poor copies of Apple products/software innovations.
Anyway, I can see Apple's App store getting even bigger with Apps for the new Tablet and eventually Apps for AppleTV along the lines of App store for the iPhone. Huge opportunity there. MS's App Store perhaps....er....not so much!
M$ is playing the quality trump card.
Something is only a 'trump card' if it has strategic value to the situation at hand. For Microsoft to play 'the quality trump card' you are assuming they have a measure of quality in the first place.
Guess what the $99 submission screams out. Little to no free apps! Why would a developer spend time developing a free app, only to have to pay upwards of $99 to submit just once? If it gets rejected, even more money goes down the drain and the developer then sees it's not financially viable to give out the app for free.
Agreed, in a way it could attract the iPhone developers with Apps that have 'proven money makers.' This would benefit MS. I could see iPhone developers doing an analysis to see if they can make money on the MS App store. I mean, if they are making money with a proven money making iPhone App, $99 is not that much, especially if they are 'first' in the MS store. Me, personally, I would stay as far away from MS as I could.
As you say, why would a developer develop a free App for MS?
Their banner isn't even fitted for the iPhone's default screen width. C'mon, Mircorosft, stop sucking at design!
What! After 30 years of it ...
That's a bit rich considering they're advertising their store on an "alternate marketplace"!
Yep, "Do as I say not as I do"
There's one big difference that Prince fails to point out - the traditional method of installing apps on WinMo will still be open to application developers. Don't like the $99 fee or the restrictions? Distribute your app through your website.
But that hasn't been a winning formula in the past. It obviously hasn't attracted the number of developers or apps to the platform as Microsoft had hoped in the past 10 years, otherwise they would be sitting pretty with no need for this marketplace initiative. There are other drawbacks to the DIY approach, such as additional expenses and piracy.
"Q: Do I need to pay the $99 fee again to submit an application update?
A: No. If your application has been previously certified and published in the catalog, you can submit subsequent updates without incurring any additional fees. The application update will be made available through Windows Marketplace for Mobile to all customers that have downloaded your application."
As I noted above, there is still confusion on this thread on two different cases:
- the re-submission of the app will be charged
- the submission of the update will NOT be charged
Still a high entry barrier IMO. If the "focusing on quality" is not just a marketing crap to excuse the minuscule number of the apps, and MS is making some QA, not just approval, then you might expect rejections. Nobody likes paying extra. $99 is not a lot of money, but before developers get to the point that they will pay those, they need to jump to the WinMo bandwagon in the first place. This policy may have more significant negative effect when evaluating the prospects of developing for WinMo than the actual developer expenses and meaningful profits for MS.
These $99 are more of a money for many countries outside US and Western Europe. I think the number of iPhone developers there is pretty small, because you need a Mac, and the macs are not popular, but for MS this is not the case. MS is loosing tens of thousands Chinese, Russian and Indian developers who could otherwise give WinMo a try, copying the most popular iPhone apps, if nothing else.
Guess what the $99 submission screams out. Little to no free apps! Why would a developer spend time developing a free app, only to have to pay upwards of $99 to submit just once? If it gets rejected, even more money goes down the drain and the developer then sees it's not financially viable to give out the app for free.
the biggest barrier to writing iphone apps is that you need a Mac. that's at least $1000.
$99 might sound like a lot but Visual Studio will run on any cheapo PC you can find from the last 5 years. you can even get Visual Studio Express for free from MSDN
the biggest barrier to writing iphone apps is that you need a Mac. that's at least $1000.
$99 might sound like a lot but Visual Studio will run on any cheapo PC you can find from the last 5 years. you can even get Visual Studio Express for free from MSDN
Remember there are many 'used' Macs out there there. A two or three year old Mac is still a great computer and will run the latest OS most times.
why would anyone want a used computer?
In the context of a developer for iPhone apps not being able to afford a new one. Sorry it wasn't explained more clearly.
Something is only a 'trump card' if it has strategic value to the situation at hand. For Microsoft to play 'the quality trump card' you are assuming they have a measure of quality in the first place.
How did Apple compete when Microsoft was running all over them? They became a "premium" provider. They survived because they were able to deliver value. Microsoft is trying this to survive against the iPhone and Android. They have little to lose.
It's wrong. Once again, don't believe Prince McLean's FUD.
Do you think they changed the bold bit before or after Prince wrote the article this thread is based on?
It's obvious they changed it but when?
"Q: I previously heard that you only had 7 days to submit a free update. Has this changed?
A: Yes, we originally communicated that only application updates submitted within 7 days of their publish date would benefit from a free submission. After talking to the developer community and better understanding the dynamics and frequency of application updates, we have decided to extend the original 7-day window and make it permanent. This means that if an application has been previously approved in the marketplace the developer can submit updates to it without incurring any additional fees."