McAkins Online

I have been planning to write an extensive post about the quality of the Windows Store, but providence will not allow time to really dive deep into it. Maybe I will have time in the future to make a complete compilation. But coming across this app in the Store today really broke the Carmel’s back for me. The app was released yesterday, it is already causing users confusion in the Store! This is a blatant abuse of Microsoft Trademarks in all aspect, and an encroachment on Microsoft’s own turf. You can imagine my jaw dropping to the ground seeing this in the Store. Someone from Microsoft have to have approved this in the Store, or not? My question then is, is there anyone at Microsoft actually policing the Store? Is there any policy still being upheld in the Store at the moment?

Those of us Windows users spending a great deal of time in the Store are simply baffled by the kinds of apps we come across in the Store. It looked as if MS has abandoned the Store and relegated the Store accreditation to Machine AIs or something. No one in their right mind will let the kind of apps we see in the Store go through, even after 5 bottles of Beer! I am talking of apps that clearly encroach on Trademarked products. Apps that call themselves Facebook, with the trademarked logo thrown in. Apps that are so Fugly Steve Jobs would weep in his graves seeing MS murder a concept he made popular. I mean Apps with Logo’s that reek of stupidity and incompetence, Color themes that are not readable to users, like black fonts on a very dark background, totally opaque to any sane person. Apps that looked like they were created by monkeys in a zoo. Apps that clearly no one will touch with a 100m pole.

What is the point of Microsoft allowing these kinds of apps in the Store? Is it for the numbers? It will turn to bite MS in the long run, and people will take a look at the Store and conclude MS Store is crap compared to competing platform and move on. This is not competing with established Mobile Store leaders Microsoft. This is not the promise you made us when you were talking about the design principles of Metro. Your keyword: Beautiful is nowhere to be found in some of these apps.

Take for example the Media Player Classic Home Cinema app, when I twitted some time back above, the app then cost $10.00 in the Store. Ten bucks for an app you cannot preview, nor test-run. No Screenshots, just the splashscreen. You are asking the users to trust you with their money and shell out their hard-earned dollars for something they can’t see. That’s a tough sell. Thank God, not a single soul has touched the app, so the Dev is now forced to drop the price to $5.00. Still a steep price for an app you have to buy in pure faith alone. It should be policy in the Store that any app that doesn’t allow Trials should have at least lots of Screenshots of the actual app so the users have an idea of what they are getting.

I can go on and on with what is wrong with the Store, but today is not the day for it. I am sure MS is aware of all these problems, the question is are they doing anything about it to keep their promise of fixing Windows 8 by the Windows Blue timeframe. Like the saying goes Microsoft, when you’re riding a Tiger, you can’t afford to make any mistake, like getting off for example. So to keep riding this Tiger, please fix everything that is wrong with Windows 8, including the Windows Store. Prune this Garden, it is now full of weeds. Weeds that are preventing your true lovers from seeing the awesome apps in the Store. Like we’ve all agreed for the Windows Platform, the Store should not be about App Count, but the quality of Apps therein. We would rather have a thousand Killer apps in the Store than a million junk Apps no one appreciates. Fix the Store MS, we know you can do it!