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Only enterprise and developers can bypass Windows Store for Metro apps

arstechnica.com

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Re: Only enterprise and developers can bypass Windows Store for Metro apps

#41

Post by saturdaysaint »

kenjackson wrote: post #11
tree_of_item wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is barely a defense: Metro is the future of Windows applications and I doubt users will be very excited about their ability to install "traditional" apps. I'm surprised that Microsoft beat Apple to locking down their desktop OS in the style of iOS, but in either case this is extremely disturbing.

I think its a positive development, across the board. The ability to better combat malware (no plugins is part of this too) will generally make these platforms safer. If you really must distribute an app that needs to go outside of these walls non-metro apps are perfectly fine. You can accomplish a lot of what Metro apps can do today outside of Metro (at least from a look and feel perspective). And as Apple has noted…

Confusion is bad. It's a shame that Windows' highest cachet titles (pro creative software, big budget games, etc.) won't be Metro.

Re: Only enterprise and developers can bypass Windows Store for Metro apps

#42

Post by josteink »

Great to see that HN thinks this is bad now the Microsoft does it. Back when Lion and its app-store was discussed not a single comment with a positive score opposed this.

Personally I am mostly negative to this idea no matter who does it, but I am also willing to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt here. At least they haven't messed it up yet. Apple has already proven that they are willing to abuse that sort of power and I can't understand why anyone would trust them again.

Hopefully the walled gardens (all over) will prove to be a temporary thing, although I can't say I see any signs of that happening yet.

Re: Only enterprise and developers can bypass Windows Store for Metro apps

#43

Post by thought_alarm »

ryanhuff wrote: post #31
thought_alarm wrote: post #16

The rule of thumb seems to be this: if iOS does it then Metro will do it too.

You could also put it as: if consumers demonstrate an appetite for it on iOS, then Microsoft will give it to them too.

Naturally. That's the "Zune" strategy.

Re: Only enterprise and developers can bypass Windows Store for Metro apps

#44

Post by 7952 »

It is better to see Metro as a layer on top of the windows OS. It isn't really competing with desktop apps, but with web pages.

The average consumer has more tabs than windows on their taskbar. Windows is becoming irrelevant. Microsoft wants to coax people away from their web browser, and back into native apps. A closed app store is a good way of offering that in a secure, simple, and profitable way. Desktop apps never succeeded in all three of these things.

Re: Only enterprise and developers can bypass Windows Store for Metro apps

#45

Post by rsynnott »

nkassis wrote: post #32
AndrewDucker wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Windows is locking itself down harder than OSX is.

For now, I think microsoft is trying to one up Apple but Apple probably won't sit still and do worse soon.

I think you may be surprised. Microsoft has done this before; they see something which is apparently working for a competitor, and run with what they think is a logical extension, without necessarily thinking it through that well. Windows Vista's very, very animated but ultimately not useful Expose-like thing (Flip3D) springs to mind.

Re: Only enterprise and developers can bypass Windows Store for Metro apps

#46

Post by bergie »

tomjen3 wrote: post #5
orangecat wrote: post #3

Microsoft controlling what software you can run on Windows used to be the reductio ad absurdum I used to argue against the iOS model. Now Android is the only platform standing between us and a Right to Read world ( http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html ).

Well, if you don't count Linux, the BSDs, webapps and even the venerable freedos (yes, somebody did clone DOS http://www.freedos.org/ and yes it runs the old DOS programs) I guess you are right.

Linux will only help as long as there is hardware open enough that you can install it. With tablets and smartphones and their closed drivers this will be a disappearing opportunity in the Post-PC world.

Re: Only enterprise and developers can bypass Windows Store for Metro apps

#47

Post by rsynnott »

tomjen3 wrote: post #35
crenshaw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK. And Windows on ARM won't run Amiga apps either. You and I both know that's not really related to what the poster stated. The poster said that ARM will only run Metro apps. You can not run x86 apps and still run non-Metro apps. And you can run x86 apps, but not run non-Metro apps. It's a completely orthogonal statement.

Actually there is no good reason Microsoft didn't write an X86 virtual machine so that their tablets could run the old programs. The instructions set is obviously different, but Android does that with Java (on an ARM processor too) and Microsoft has enough smart people who could make sure that the performance would be great.

> Actually there is no good reason Microsoft didn't write an X86 virtual machine so that their tablets could run the old programs.

There is. You'd be looking at something very much like Apple Rosetta. Now, the first Intel Macs were substantially faster than the PPC Macs that most people had at the time, but even then Rosetta felt painful. All current and near-future ARM chips will be slower than most current Intel chips; you'd expect it to be even more painful. Worse, for lightweight apps it would involve far more CPU usage, which would hurt battery life. People wouldn't _care_ that their Windows 8 tablet was getting two hours battery life while their friend's iPad was getting 10 because they were running a legacy app which was hogging the processor doing instruction translation; they'd just blame Microsoft.

The case of Java is a little different; both Dalvik and JVM are designed to be JIT compiled relatively efficiently to multiple common architectures. Architectures like x86 and PPC are generally _not_, and things like Rosetta suffer as a result.

Re: Only enterprise and developers can bypass Windows Store for Metro apps

#48

Post by rsynnott »

thought_alarm wrote: post #16

The rule of thumb seems to be this: if iOS does it then Metro will do it too.

Or, in fact, Microsoft will go one step (and not necessarily a logical step) further. There doesn't seem to be any question of a situation where, say, UIKit replaces AppKit as the modern way to write MacOS applications, and UIKit applications must be distributed through the app store. Microsoft, however, is pushing Metro as the new big thing for desktop apps, not just tablet apps, and Metro apps will be app store only.

Re: Only enterprise and developers can bypass Windows Store for Metro apps

#49

Post by xpaulbettsx »

dexen wrote: post #12
megamark16 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just until the day when it moves to the hardware level, where your hardware will refuse to run certain processes unless they are digitally signed. Good times. See also "Intel Trusted Execution Technology": http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-trusted-execu...

Things got quite close by now: mandatory driver signing in 64bit Windows Vista & 7. You need to select extra boot option to be able to load unsigned driver. Like the venerable ext2fsd: driver for ext2 & ext3 FS [1]. It won't work for Joe the Average User. Terrorists win, game over. [1] http://www.ext2fsd.com/ EDIT: it's a clever move, limititing that requirement only to 64bit Windows. No need for one-time big switcho…

For what it's worth, this wasn't to stop free software drivers, it was a stick to force IHVs to ship drivers that didn't suck, since they could no longer ship drivers that didn't pass WHQL testing.

The end result is a more stable system for consumers, but F/OSS got caught in the fallout.

If you as a F/OSS driver dev really want to avoid signatures, sign your driver using the test cert and run the following command in your installer:

    bcdedit -set testsigning on

Re: Only enterprise and developers can bypass Windows Store for Metro apps

#50

Post by slowpoke »

alex_c wrote: post #13
kenjackson wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its a positive development, across the board. The ability to better combat malware (no plugins is part of this too) will generally make these platforms safer. If you really must distribute an app that needs to go outside of these walls non-metro apps are perfectly fine. You can accomplish a lot of what Metro apps can do today outside of Metro (at least from a look and feel perspective). And as Apple has noted…

How are you spinning this to be about choice? You're conflating the app type with the distribution channel. I agree that curated native app stores are generally great. Users get higher quality apps with great discoverability, developers get a great distribution channel, and let's not forget, the platform owner gets 30%. It's hard to argue that this is about choice of where you get your apps, though.

If by "higher quality apps" you mean loads and loads of thinly disguised ad- and spyware, as well as generally useless crap, then yes, curated native app stores are "great".

I'd say the density of pure and utter crapware has never been higher than in the various app stores.

While a unified distribution method is generally a good idea for various reasons (see package managers), the whole app store concept runs completely contrary to those.

It's not about choice, it's about control.

It's not about security, it's about locking down the system.

It's not about convenience for the user, it's about completely undeserved profit for the platform owner.

It's not about helping the developers, it's about forcing them to play by someone else's (highly arbitrary) rules.

I'm frankly scared about this entire development. Call me paranoid all you want, but we're heading with full speed to some sort of digital 1984 if it goes on anything like this.

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