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Why Publishing on the Windows Phone is Like Walking Barefoot On Broken Glass

toshl.com

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Re: Why Publishing on the Windows Phone is Like Walking Barefoot On Broken Glass

#21

Post by latch »

technoslut wrote: post #11
latch wrote: post #3

I'm not sure why they don't just pull the app. They admit that it's bringing them virtually no users and it's a frustrating experience. With only a 1.3% market share (1), what reasons can there be to bother with it? (1) http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/?p=32494

Sometimes I think it's best for a developer to take a chance instead of playing it safe because it can bring a greater reward. They chose a platform they enjoyed and which they could get in on the ground floor. As they say, fortune favors the bold. As an example, if The Omni Group decided to go to Windows instead of NeXTStep, there's a possibility that they would never be successful as they are now.

Explains why they tried, doesn't explain why they are sticking to it, unless they imagine the story, both in terms of market penetration and developer support, is going to get considerably better.

Re: Why Publishing on the Windows Phone is Like Walking Barefoot On Broken Glass

#22

Post by Mythbusters »

latch wrote: post #21
technoslut wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I think it's best for a developer to take a chance instead of playing it safe because it can bring a greater reward. They chose a platform they enjoyed and which they could get in on the ground floor. As they say, fortune favors the bold. As an example, if The Omni Group decided to go to Windows instead of NeXTStep, there's a possibility that they would never be successful as they are now.

Explains why they tried, doesn't explain why they are sticking to it, unless they imagine the story, both in terms of market penetration and developer support, is going to get considerably better.

the Windows Phone platform is going through some churn. With the new Windows 8, apps can share the marketplace so you can target the Windows installed base with your apps too. If you have already spent efforts developing the app, leaving it there seems worth it.

Re: Why Publishing on the Windows Phone is Like Walking Barefoot On Broken Glass

#23

Post by Mythbusters »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #6
latch wrote: post #3

I'm not sure why they don't just pull the app. They admit that it's bringing them virtually no users and it's a frustrating experience. With only a 1.3% market share (1), what reasons can there be to bother with it? (1) http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/?p=32494

Funny thing is that the ancient, discontinued Windows Mobile has 2.9% market share, more than twice of that of Windows Phone 7 Mobile Pocket edition, released October 2010 (21 months ago)!

It took android a couple of years after it was launched to actually take off...

Re: Why Publishing on the Windows Phone is Like Walking Barefoot On Broken Glass

#24

Post by Mythbusters »

deerpig wrote: post #8

So much for Balmer's "developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers...."

Windows Phone 8: Gaining Apps, Software Developer Support: http://www.thevarguy.com/2012/07/12/windows-phone-8-apps-mob...

Re: Why Publishing on the Windows Phone is Like Walking Barefoot On Broken Glass

#25

Post by technoslut »

latch wrote: post #21
technoslut wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I think it's best for a developer to take a chance instead of playing it safe because it can bring a greater reward. They chose a platform they enjoyed and which they could get in on the ground floor. As they say, fortune favors the bold. As an example, if The Omni Group decided to go to Windows instead of NeXTStep, there's a possibility that they would never be successful as they are now.

Explains why they tried, doesn't explain why they are sticking to it, unless they imagine the story, both in terms of market penetration and developer support, is going to get considerably better.

Many analysts believe that WP will see more success which is where it starts (with consumer interest). Many devs put up with Apple's flawed and constantly evolving policies because they believe there is financial success waiting on the other side which isn't entirely untrue.

Re: Why Publishing on the Windows Phone is Like Walking Barefoot On Broken Glass

#26

Post by einhverfr »

latch wrote: post #3

I'm not sure why they don't just pull the app. They admit that it's bringing them virtually no users and it's a frustrating experience. With only a 1.3% market share (1), what reasons can there be to bother with it? (1) http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/?p=32494

I don't know what markets Windows Phone is used in though.

if you look at a device like the Symbol MC50 and think about how much nicer it might be to integrate actual phone service with it, so there may be room in the market for Windows Phone PDT's and the like (the Symbol MC50 is basically a portable data terminal with WIFI capability running Windows Mobile.

Again it may depend on your market.

Re: Why Publishing on the Windows Phone is Like Walking Barefoot On Broken Glass

#27

Post by SwellJoe »

Mythbusters wrote: post #23
pooriaazimi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing is that the ancient, discontinued Windows Mobile has 2.9% market share, more than twice of that of Windows Phone 7 Mobile Pocket edition, released October 2010 (21 months ago)!

It took android a couple of years after it was launched to actually take off...

That's inaccurate. HTC had a record-setting quarter with the introduction of the G1 at the end of 2008, and the Dream was also a bestselling device. By the second year Android was outselling iPhone (which had been the fastest selling phone in history up to that point). Android was, by all reasonable measures, an explosive and rapid success. One could argue it took a few months to "take off", but its sales numbers have vastly outpaced Windows Phone, even from the very first months. By the time we were 21 months into the story it was obvious to anybody paying attention that Android was going to be Apple's primary competition in the smart phone market.

Windows Phone is a flop. It may be good (I wouldn't know). But it is demonstrably not popular.

Re: Why Publishing on the Windows Phone is Like Walking Barefoot On Broken Glass

#28

Post by rogerbinns »

What I find fascinating is the app store URL. It includes en-US and the app is identified by a GUID so you have no chance of working out what it is other than clicking on the link. Locales of fr-CA and fr-FR worked but not en-UK or en-GB.

Apple has a country code, the app name and a numeric id. But the app name is just decoration and is ignored, so you could easily mislead by putting in anything you want. From the country code it looks like they believe only one language is spoken in any country (eg I couldn't select between French and English for Canada). The ids aren't in numeric order - probably some sort of timestamp instead.

Google uses a descriptive URL without country or language parts, and then the app is identified by package name (bundle id equivalent for the iOS crowd) which looks fine to us techie folk and mostly follows being the DNS name with some extra gunk such as com.rovio.angrybirdsspace.ads

Amazon Android URLs are amazon.com//dp/ where the app title is just decoration and can be changed to anything and ID is hexadecimal(ish).

They all have various issues. I think locale information as part of the URI path is silly. Titles in the URLs is nice but open up social engineering attacks. As a techie I like the Google approach of identification, but that too is prone to social engineering (to my knowledge they do not verify a correspondence to the publishing organization DNS). But it is prettier than random numbers. A GUID is Microsoft's hammer and solution to everything. In this case it just makes the URLs unnecessarily long.

Re: Why Publishing on the Windows Phone is Like Walking Barefoot On Broken Glass

#30

Post by graue »

amishforkfight wrote: post #13
sp332 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, I thought it was a bit too much. They really can't see how some people might be offended?

Who would get offended by that? It's not even close to offensive.

If I heard a joke about naughty toys in a movie? Or some good friends made fun of me while out drinking and said something like that? Sure, no problem.

But in a finance app? Not okay. If I'm trusting this company's app to manage my finances, they should show a professional level of distance and respect, and not have some robot joking about my sex life. It's personal, it's potentially insulting, and it's in a context where this kind of subject should be left alone.

And that's saying nothing of the fact that in countries like Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Qatar, people are probably not anywhere near as open about sexuality as we are in the United States and Europe. If you want to market a product in those countries you should respect that.

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