Guest post by “Microsoft’s Windows App Store screenshots appear to have leaked for the first time on Monday. The screenshots show Microsoft’s new application store for Windows. The store appears to be running in Windows 7, hinting that the software giant may also be planning to offer its app store for legacy versions of Windows.”
I think it will be interesting to be able to distribute my application this way. I look forward to putting it on Mac and trying out the App Store for Mac as well.
When I get to Linux I’ll have to do deb and rpm but I will probably do some more as well. I just hope that the tools are great.
If executed correctly it can really help us indie developers get more exposure.
But isn’t it all about just ripping you off and making 30% of YOUR profit? Hmmm, actually, come to think of it, if you sell 1000 copies instead of 100, 70% is still going to be more in your pocket isn’t it.
Wow, who’da thunk…
No, not really. I was planning on keeping it free of charge actually. But they can keep as many percent of zero as they want.
However, if I can’t have my free of charge application in anyone’s store free of charge then I’ll skip it.
Just saying that I like the idea of a store as long as it’s implemented and executed correctly.
It’s actually a nice deal.
They handle marketing, hosting, distribution, and payment processing. They also provide you with APIs and tools.
In return you get 70% of the total sales. I do not think many businesses can run 70% profit.
Edited 2011-04-12 00:17 UTC
Agreed. If this is done properly, an App Store is something that’s badly needed on Windows, especially if users can leave reviews and you can update all of your apps at the same time. It’s better than the ‘wild west scenario’ that’s currently out there. It would be truly great if, when you got a new PC, you could just hit the app store and have it install all of the apps you currently own. (Highly doubhtful though).
(As a side note, I’m sure pundits will point out that this has been done on Linux for years, but unless you can point me to an app store/repository that works across ALL Linux distros (like the Android Marketplace works on all Android devices that haven’t been purposely gimped by the carrier), you can kindly STFU.)
Edited 2011-04-12 00:54 UTC
“like the Android Marketplace works on all Android devices”
Bad comparison. You’re saying that Android Marketplace works on anything running Android…essentially the same linux distro. This is currently the case with other linux distros. Redhat distros work on all Redhat computers.
Are you sure about that? For example, could I take any package in the Debian repository and load it in Ubuntu, and vice versa? As I understand it, the two are not binary compatible. And if they are, why not just have one repository for the both of them (or any Debian variant for that matter)? You could just have a filter that excludes all binary packages for anybody in the Cult of Stallman.
Ubuntu and Debian are not the same distro. Ubuntu makes changes to some of the work that Debian does. In the mobile world this could qualify for your “haven’t been purposely gimped by the carrier” as the original Debian sources have been changed, or this could be the equivalent of WebOS and Android. Both linux distros, but not exactly the same and therefore don’t work with the same app stores.
I’m not 100% certain but I think you could install Centos RPM’s on a Redhat server since Centos is built directly from Redhat SRPM’s. Maybe someone that tried this can comment if this is true or not.
Edited 2011-04-12 10:17 UTC
They are binary compatible, but they could be dependant on packages that are packaged/named differently in both repositories, and there might be some differences in the post-install scripts.
If Debian and Ubuntu shared the same repository there would be no Debian and Ubuntu but one single distro. It’s the software available in the repos, how it’s compiled and packaged, what pretty much defines a distribution (other than the default bundled software selection). Eg. Ubuntu’s Gnome is not the same as your vanilla Debian Gnome.
That said, every Debian package I’ve installed in Ubuntu has worked just fine.
Sure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNR_(software), circa 2002. It supported all of the major Linux distros starting in 2007, but the vendor later cut a licensing deal with Microsoft and then promptly died. Who’da thunk? (* innocent look *)
-Marketing : Apart from the App Store itself, which apps do Apple market ?
-Hosting : You can store gigabytes of data for a few dozens of dollars a year nowadays. How much does an App Store subscription cost each developer per year ?
-Distribution : Cf hosting. There are no other significant costs associated to digital distribution.
-Payment processing : Granted, this one must cost something. Not that much, though, since everyone and his dog on the internet accepts credit card payments these days.
-APIs and tools : They are forced to provide those anyway for the platform to succeed, not related to the app store mechanism.
-70% profit : No. A lot of people still have to be paid in the app’s team.
I still think such a service should be provided for free. A company which sells a phone for 700^a‘not and a keyboardless netbook for 500^a‘not really can afford it.
The 30% also covers bandwidth and hosting and probably the most expensive credit card transactions, here in the uk barclays and lloyds. Charge quite a bit for credit card transactions, so I’ve always considered 30% not a bad deal.
Looking at all the places to download shareware/freeware. I would say that a not carefully selected list software could sink this “app store” (isn’t it an Apple trademark ?), to something that is slightly less useful than paint.
And would microsoft start the same draconian selection process as Apple, they would get their ass sued for monopoly practices.
Everybody is jumping over these screenshots but they are 100% fake.
It’s just a photoshopped Windows Media Player 12 window. The window doesn’t contain Windows 8 fonts. It’s title bar text is not centered. The window controls (close, maximize,..) are not in correct size. And the icons in sidebar are from famous FamFamFam iconset. Microsot uses orange circles as icon placeholders.
It’s totally fake.
It could be a work by another team in Microsoft which uses current version of Windows to develop the software.
I do not think all the Windows team only works on the latest build as their desktop.
If there is no available designer, development team uses just orange circles for placeholder images not icons collected from web.
The inclusion of Angry Birds and Opera on the front page make me suspicious of the validity of this image.
I don’t think it fits with what I’ve seen of windows 8…which is mostly Metro UI and lots of Ribbon.
IT doesn’t have to, since the article clearly states the Windows application store might come to Windows 7 too – which makes perfect sense, actually. They’d be stupid not to launch the store on Windows 7 as well.
Uhm? They are the right size.
Uhm, no they’re not. We use FamFamFam Silk on OSAlert (see our footer), and if you compare the icons in the screenshot to the overview of FFFS*, the only one that looks alike is th badgeless cog; the wrench is different, and the cog with the arrow badge is nowhere to be found in FFFS. The folders in the screenshot are standing up-right, while FFFS uses the more conventional horizontal orientation.
Please, do some actual research before claiming fake. I’m not saying the shots are NOT fake – I’m just saying your arguments are entirely invalid.
* http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/previews/index_abc.png
Lets just wait another 1 year to see who is right.
MS basically wants to release what future looks like and have no requirement to stick to it if its hated.
These are not what you call leaks. These are what you call feedback seeking named leaks.
And what’s wrong with that, exactly?
I think it’s brilliant. IT gets us – you know, consumers – better products, because we get a say. How, exactly, is that a bad thing?
You really feel like you have a lot of choice and you have a say in IT ?
I’ve never had that feeling when dealing with the proprietary operating systems for example.
Simple example, I’ve reported bugs in IE which made it crash (which is a potential security issue) no response.
The process for reporting the bug included creating a windows live account and a whole lot of craziness.
I see people mention these kind of things on mailinglists atleast ones a month. I reported a bug, nothing happends. Or something happends, but it never made it into a production release.
Sometimes they where asked to pay for it, even though Microsoft was doing things in their operating system which was clearly a bug.
No, I think the proprietary vendors have their own agenda.
While with mature open source projects, I get the opposite result. My bug is fixed within a few hours and the next release includes the fix.
Because you know it is bad to actually listen to what your users think … Oh wait … You are talking rubbish.
Windows really needed an application store, I don’t like having to enter my CC details on different websites to purchase software.
Seeing how well other DD platforms such as Steam are doing this could really be a great opportunity if done right.