Develop Bugs

[Q] is just me. or marketplace for wp7 is just full of junk?

Is there really a filter in there? The 90% of the apps in market are really a bunch of junk, yesterday I saw a 400 bucks app that someone did for fun... (not much fun if someone double click the buy button).
I mean is microsoft really fitering the apps for wp7 or they just want to increase the ammount of apps asap?
When are the good apps (like in windows mobile 6) coming?
When we will able to have some serious apps for buy? I speak about GPS navs, configuration tools for connections, tethering apps, voip and all the great stuff that we had on windows mobile etc...

No, you are not dreaming.
They are adding 5 new 'Calculate the Tips' software every week.
Really nice, isn't it?

No it's not just you ... there is alot of rubbish out there but to be fair ... I wouldn't say 90%. There are a few decent bit.
I was expecting this and imagine it will only get better as MS have given this OS some motherly love as opposed to WM

Infuriated-Germ said:
it will only get better as MS have given this OS some motherly love as opposed to WM
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Nice. So we can expect some good 'Fart' applications in the near future ?

no offense, but how many apps in the apple market or android market are actually any good??? Not very many.
1. HTC has a connections config app, if you didn't buy an htc phone then shame on you.
2. There is a voip app in the marketplace, someone else was talking about it.
3. You do know the OS is less than a month old right???

OK, I have used the Palm market place, the Itunes app store, the android market and the windows market and I have found that in all cases 90% of the apps are rubbish or variations on a theme (tip calculators for the numerically challenged etc.). I am waiting for only 1 app which has been promised - Kindle!!!

That's what makes Apple's app store so laughable. They occasionally announce that there's a bazillion or so apps in their store but 98% of them are rubbish. I suspect the WP7 market will most likely mirror that and it probably should. The alternative is to become Apple and turn things down because "there's too many of those" or "there's no good reason for this" or the worst, no reason at all. Where Apple's store really fails is their rating system. If Microsoft can identify and correct that weakness they'll definitely have an upper hand.

Its the same in every market. No matter where you go there will be junk.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

Johny1969 said:
Is there really a filter in there? The 90% of the apps in market are really a bunch of junk, yesterday I saw a 400 bucks app that someone did for fun... (not much fun if someone double click the buy button).
I mean is microsoft really fitering the apps for wp7 or they just want to increase the ammount of apps asap?
When are the good apps (like in windows mobile 6) coming?
When we will able to have some serious apps for buy? I speak about GPS navs, configuration tools for connections, tethering apps, voip and all the great stuff that we had on windows mobile etc...
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Click to collapse
How do you expect to see configuration tweaking apps for the OS that has been locked down like a Ft. Knox?
BTW, happy anniversary.

arturobandini said:
No, you are not dreaming.
They are adding 5 new 'Calculate the Tips' software every week.
Really nice, isn't it?
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Exactly what is the deal with that? That is crazy. Cant even get a decent checkbook app

arturobandini said:
No, you are not dreaming.
They are adding 5 new 'Calculate the Tips' software every week.
Really nice, isn't it?
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Click to collapse
Another example are currency converters. The funny thing is that I still have to find one that works correctly with German localization...

I just need a good IM app and the Kindle app and im set. Hopefully the IM app supports multiple logins on all platforms.

Isn't it the developers spewing out these applications that are to blame? If someone is so foolish as to pay a $99 fee only to produce a fart application at the end of it, why is it MS's fault? If they rejected the devs work then people would moan that MS is censoring people, big brother, etc. Just let market forces play their part, crap will sink and quality applications will rise by word of mouth and reviews by users.

efjay said:
Isn't it the developers spewing out these applications that are to blame? If someone is so foolish as to pay a $99 fee only to produce a fart application at the end of it, why is it MS's fault? If they rejected the devs work then people would moan that MS is censoring people, big brother, etc. Just let market forces play their part, crap will sink and quality applications will rise by word of mouth and reviews by users.
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They produce the fart app for you in order to get back that 99 dollars as soon as possible.
Do you think real developers do not want to create good apps? They just need to be interested in what the users want and what they can accomplished with the SDK provided by the manufacturer to satisfy the users' wants.
I suggest for you guys to create a thread, and possibly stick it, on what you want on your device, and get a feedback from developers how easy or difficult it is going to be to implement it,

Johny1969 said:
Is there really a filter in there? The 90% of the apps in market are really a bunch of junk, yesterday I saw a 400 bucks app that someone did for fun... (not much fun if someone double click the buy button).
I mean is microsoft really fitering the apps for wp7 or they just want to increase the ammount of apps asap?
When are the good apps (like in windows mobile 6) coming?
When we will able to have some serious apps for buy? I speak about GPS navs, configuration tools for connections, tethering apps, voip and all the great stuff that we had on windows mobile etc...
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Click to collapse
So are you saying the Android market isn't full of junk? When I perused the Android market, I say 90% filler, including sex app after sex app. And I saw personal quote apps a plenty.

MartyLK said:
So are you saying the Android market isn't full of junk? When I perused the Android market, I say 90% filler, including sex app after sex app. And I saw personal quote apps a plenty.
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Stop bringing Android, no need to stir it this way, the thread is about WP7 market.

it goes like this...eventually as the good developers port their apps over to WP7, and the so-so developers get better as they become accustomed to the platform,...the apps on the market will get better. And those apps that are "rubbish" will eventually fade away.
And yes, if you think the WP7 market place is rubbish, there's no doubt that all that rubbish is on every other phone's market place as well...just more of it

lol, I registered to answer this question.
Alot of people are correct in this thread.. Developers are just try to quickly recoup their $99 investment. There is some low lying fruit that can quickly make a buck in a marketplace that has relatively no competition. Flashlights / farts / quotes / bartenders / etc are very easy to make and are a good introduction to new wp7 developers.
What I really came here to say though, is that there is a BIG onus on US to review and rate these apps. We should rate and review every single app we use. Even if you give it a low rating it will push apps that noone even bought lower on the list. I've seen a few free apps with 0 reviews.. this should not happen.
I have an app in development that should be above mediocre, but it takes time and I only got my device for testing 2 days ago. So be patient, we're churning them out.

itchison said:
lol, I registered to answer this question.
Alot of people are correct in this thread.. Developers are just try to quickly recoup their $99 investment. There is some low lying fruit that can quickly make a buck in a marketplace that has relatively no competition. Flashlights / farts / quotes / bartenders / etc are very easy to make and are a good introduction to new wp7 developers.
What I really came here to say though, is that there is a BIG onus on US to review and rate these apps. We should rate and review every single app we use. Even if you give it a low rating it will push apps that noone even bought lower on the list. I've seen a few free apps with 0 reviews.. this should not happen.
I have an app in development that should be above mediocre, but it takes time and I only got my device for testing 2 days ago. So be patient, we're churning them out.
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Thank you for this bit of reminder. Even when I was in Android, I made good use of the rating system...in WinMo on the HD2 also...and I most of the time forgot to rate them myself.

All these app stores, Apple, Android and Microsoft's, suffer the same problem that there's a glut of garbage in them. I can't speak for Android's as I haven't used it in ages but the problem with Apple's is their lousy rating and review system and poor (if any) filtering. I suspect the Apple and Android stores will probably always look like the software version of a garage sale but my hope is that Microsoft identifies and comes up with a good solution to the problem. Being able to sort based on units sold over a period of time, for example, would cause the real trash to immediately sink to the bottom and out of sight regardless of rating. A great fart board is still a fart board, for example, and how many of any individual app is going to be sold? Out of sight, out of mind.

Did the quality of apps just take a nosedive?

Is it just me that's noticing this? Nowadays most of the new apps are just terrible. For example "IM Buddy", I can't fathom how this piece of shift passed certification. It's mind boggling.

If you think that's bad, just look at 90% of the iPhone's app store! This is why quantity doesn't trump quality.
iPhone and Android users keep quoting the NUMBER of apps in their stores as being somehow the best indicator of how a store is doing, but in the end a store with 4,000 top quality apps is far better than a store with 300,000 rotten eggs.
I mean, does the music business tout how many records they have? Is Sony BMG better than EMI because they've put out more music? Of course not. It's all down to the quality of the artists.
Same with apps.
All app stores will end up with some dross. I pray the WP7 store will end up with less of it. All the dross does it make the cream harder to find.

This is the problem now that MS has where they are being judged by quantity when it comes to apps more than quality so they will put stuff through that they otherwise would not had the media let up on the bashing. Though its worth noting that android has a lot worse and is flooded with pure rubbish.

Glad I'm not the only one that thinks the marketplace is full of mostly crap-ware. Other than games, I haven't bought a single thing from the marketplace. The majority of the apps on there regurgitate stuff you could find by doing a simple goobing search. Most of the decent stuff is freeware anyway, like YouTube, Facebook, IMDB, Adobe Reader.
And how many tip-calculators are there!! Do people really calculate their tips based on how much they paid, how many people there are and what percentage tip they want to leave?? You could just calculate how much your meal was and then round the figure off like every other completely sane person.
Solutions looking for problems if you ask me.

masadav said:
And how many tip-calculators are there!! Do people really calculate their tips based on how much they paid, how many people there are and what percentage tip they want to leave?? You could just calculate how much your meal was and then round the figure off like every other completely sane person.
Solutions looking for problems if you ask me.
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ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
sometimes it's really difficult to calculate a 10% tip.. i have 5 tip calculators just in case one of them messes up.

I'm hoping that once a month or something, they get their interns over there at MS to go through the apps and delete the crap/ duplicate apps and notify the developer that they need to up their game.
Do we really need 8 different live-book apps from the same guy, one of which is about a bridge they put up near him?

pillsburydoughman said:
Is it just me that's noticing this? Nowadays most of the new apps are just terrible. For example "IM Buddy", I can't fathom how this piece of shift passed certification. It's mind boggling.
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I don't think it's any worse than it's been from the start. It's always a lot of crap and some good stuff. I can't agree with the guy who said he'd never purchase anything that's not a game. I've purchased Pictures Labs, Stocks Tile, Cocktail Flow, iKamasutra, Personal Shopping Assistant, Word Explorer Dictionary, and I'll give the $3 to Seymour whenever the trial asks me to. I have another 20 or so free apps installed that are pretty good, too.

i don't think we should be worried about what apps go in. what really needs to happen is that the market place itself needs a bit of a revamp in terms of functionality. Possible things that could be put in which would easily make the market place stand up above all rivals are... an advanced search for it, change logs, friends using app, trial/buy ratio, most downloaded/purchased in last day/week/month, feature requests (with rating for request), dev interactions (someway that the dev can get feedback on a particular feature), app beta testing (e.g. one of us makes an app, and we want just the xda community to beta test it before we ship it out for the masses).
all of these are just little ideas that could easily improve the market, help devs bring better products, and ultimately separate the crapware from the awesomeware.

Where I have spent $$$ on apps..
Games: Many - mostly XBL but a couple not XBL worth buying (try a game called Decent... it's really great looking and fun)
Apps: YomoMedia - it's a good RSS feeder and reader... Converter Pro... very cool app for converting everything including currency. Thumba 2 - best image editor on WP7... bar-none. Morfo - because it's retarded and fun. Metro Web Browser - it's cool but it was kind of a waste - it does add some novel features to browsing but not having it integrated is kinda well... worthless. Collage - another great picture app. Picture Frame - another good one for displaying pictures. Picture Labs... not as good as Thumba. Presenter - cool way to control my powerpoints alas not the best solution without Bluetooth however!

Let's think for a minute. The iPhone App Store is filled largely with...garbage apps. Same with Android Market (perhaps more so). What made you guys think that Windows Marketplace wasn't going to suffer the same fate?

wish they would let US, the community, screen the apps i.e. which gets approved or which gets trashed. just wishful thinking

hboos said:
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
sometimes it's really difficult to calculate a 10% tip.. i have 5 tip calculators just in case one of them messes up.
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Only if u had a 3rs grade education.
Just move the decimal one place to the left... It's not hard and involves really no math skills.
I can't believe you posted this crap...
Tip calculators are useless.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

N8ter said:
Only if u had a 3rs grade education.
Just move the decimal one place to the left... It's not hard and involves really no math skills.
I can't believe you posted this crap...
Tip calculators are useless.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
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Hehehe, N8ter, I think he's just posting a sarcastic or joke about tip calculators

N8ter said:
Only if u had a 3rs grade education.
Just move the decimal one place to the left... It's not hard and involves really no math skills.
I can't believe you posted this crap...
Tip calculators are useless.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
thanks n8ter. i never knew you could do that. what if there is no decimal to move to the left? but if you move the decimal to the left and the left way is right and the right way is wrong what is left is just the wrong way through the centre and it all becomes mind bottling...
i know it's sometimes difficult to sense sarcasm but you'd think that common sense would factor in somewhere..
but seriously...
there are lots of useless apps in any marketplace but you need that base of useless apps which draws in more users (just because of publicized numbers of apps) and this in turn will attract more developers.
so i welcome all these useless/junk apps.. i won't be using them but they are good for inflating the number of apps in WP7

There was nothing in that post to indicate sarcasm. No emoticon or anything. If you were being sarcastic, you failed at indicating it.
If you actually read this forum, you'll notice that lots of people say lots of things you may think is sarcastic, but they actually mean it.

N8ter said:
There was nothing in that post to indicate sarcasm. No emoticon or anything. If you were being sarcastic, you failed at indicating it.
If you actually read this forum, you'll notice that lots of people say lots of things you may think is sarcastic, but they actually mean it.
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I clocked it as sarcasm but you're from the USA aren't you? I think Americans don't get or use sarcasm as much as we do in the UK. Or something.
But anyway, yeah it was definitely sarcasm.

sometimes it's really difficult to calculate a 10% tip.. i have 5 tip calculators just in case one of them messes up.
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that line screams sarcasm imo..

Agreed. That was a very successful troll.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

Well, I'm going to add three QUALITY apps to the Norwegian market as soon as it opens. Might even have to release them as free apps on the american/english markets until the Norwegian one opens, as licenses are bound to the country you buy it from. So...if I sell through foreign market, users will lose their license when they move to the domestic one :S

Crap apps are easy to make
Good apps take time
This is why there were good apps at launch, but now you see more crap. Give it another month or so, and the tides will turn. Keeping the Zune market from being plagued like the Ios store and Android store, that will be hard to do.

Developers are stepping up!

I would just like to point out the amazing jobs developers are doing in the lead up to Mango. Over the last 2 weeks we've had many official apps people want on a platform and hopefully this will last up to and beyond the Mango release. Also hats off to Microsoft as I'm sure they have something to do with it (close release dates can't just be a coincidence). A few examples of official apps from various markets released only in the last 2 weeks:
- IM+
- NBC Nightly
- MTV News
- Evernote
- FoodSpotting
- VH1 To Go
- Steven Colbert's The Word
- StubHub
- Best Buy
- AmazonFresh
- L'Equipe
- i>tele
- Larousse Francais
- Tele 7 Programme TV
- Telerama
- Dictionary.com
- Allrecipes
- XE Currency
- Photofunia
- KiK Messenger
- Weight Watchers
- National Park Maps
- Qype
- Plants vs Zombies
- Angry Birds
Now if only Mango would come very very soon we'd be a happy bunch .

Peew971 said:
I would just like to point out the amazing jobs developers are doing in the lead up to Mango. Over the last 2 weeks we've had many official apps people want on a platform and hopefully this will last up to and beyond the Mango release. Also hats off to Microsoft as I'm sure they have something to do with it (close release dates can't just be a coincidence).
.
.
.
Now if only Mango would come very very soon we'd be a happy bunch .
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Yeah, WP7 is really moving on now. Some of the apps you mentioned are not available over here in Germany, but the ones I happened to have tested are really nice. Especially because of the ease of use that the metro ui offers. I'm really looking forward to what kind of apps mango will spawn.

Yeah they all seem well made and not just lazy ports from iOS/android. I missed a few too like Gowalla for instance.
Sent from my Samsung Omnia 7 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

Yep, the app offering is getting quite better (if we aren't concerning too much about increasing spam).
Feels like all the traction needed for the 'real' launch of wp7 will be there only with the Mango/Nokia binome, though

andycted said:
Yep, the app offering is getting quite better (if we aren't concerning too much about increasing spam).
Feels like all the traction needed for the 'real' launch of wp7 will be there only with the Mango/Nokia binome, though
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There are a few good apps that do a better job filtering out crap apps than the official marketplace. WP7applist and Marketplace search are two that I have used.

yes it's good

ryude said:
There are a few good apps that do a better job filtering out crap apps than the official marketplace. WP7applist and Marketplace search are two that I have used.
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Yep, I know, but the point of building a marketplace _late_ and from the ground up, was -I though- avoiding the errors made by those who arrived first. At this point I'm still uncertain if they managed it, when I see 20 cloned apps floating in the new section now and then, apps that track one single guy achievements in a single game (20x times) and such things. But that's another argument.
I use Top Apps 2, which sorts apps/games based on reviews and not download count and has a nice set of filters.

andycted said:
Yep, I know, but the point of building a marketplace _late_ and from the ground up, was -I though- avoiding the errors made by those who arrived first. At this point I'm still uncertain if they managed it, when I see 20 cloned apps floating in the new section now and then, apps that track one single guy achievements in a single game (20x times) and such things. But that's another argument.
I use Top Apps 2, which sorts apps/games based on reviews and not download count and has a nice set of filters.
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Very true, and if you really think about it, we only have about 1,000 apps that are worth using. The rest is crap.

ryude said:
Very true, and if you really think about it, we only have about 1,000 apps that are worth using. The rest is crap.
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I'm not totally against marketplace opening. But it's clear Microsoft has absolutely no policy on app content or rather non-content.
Having an RSS app for every RSS feed out there makes zero sense, but they're not concerned by that.

Peew971 said:
Yeah they all seem well made and not just lazy ports from iOS/android.
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I wouldn't mind if they ported all the apps over, then started fixing them.

Even more official apps today like American Airlines or E! Can't list them all but WP7 is on a roll at the moment.
Sent from my Samsung Omnia 7 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

All it took was the Nokia announcement I guess...

Still going on today with some new official apps (mostly European). I'm hoping for a non-US Amazon and Audible soon .
Some official apps released today: Fox News, Marmiton, DC Comics, Voyages-SNCF, Sky Italy TV Guide.

VEVO was also released today!
wow im loving the pace of the way things are moving with wp7

the dc comics app is gorgeous.
man im loving this pace...its been app after app after app.

Foursquare is back by the way, totally revamped.
Sent from my Samsung Omnia 7 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

There is a trend on wp7 which is quite different than android. it's both good and bad in my opinion.
Games which are not xbox-live, even good ones, aren't really promoted on the platform. The same goes for apps that aren't 'official'.
This isn't bad per-se, meaning big companies with good resources can provide very polished good apps, like the ones you mentioned.
On the other hand, independent developer are left with their own means, with the menace of ever increasing spam and invisibility.
The 'featured' section is confined to 'official' apps like the ones you mentioned and the games section official promotion/visibility is monopoly of xbox.
While this can produce a few good standard apps, I think Microsoft could work better with the plumbing necessary for indie devs. Right now they basically have no interest in putting some boundaries between a good indie app/game and a crap/cloned/spammy one. They just mention that the 'marketplace will decide for itself'. Seems a bit too little.
Yeah I know this isn't all that weird, but seeing stuff like doodle jump on xbox live and free clones that got to the platform months earlier, that are free and actually better than the original... I feel something is missing.
Personally, seeing the problems linked with the 'free' and 'new' sections of the marketplace, it seems to me that they had the potential for the ultimate best mobile marketplace ever, and they've blown it away following previous models and standards.
All this to say that it's excellent to see all these official apps coming out (whilte the title of the thread is wrong, since it's not 'devs' that are stepping up, rather it's companies that bought in), there are a few missed opportunities to have a mix of what is good on android and ios together.
Don't misunderstand me, I know wp7 is far closer to ios than android, at least for marketplace structure. And I would still take this marketplace over others.
I just think people upstairs care too much about numbers
[disclaimer] yep, I do develop indie stuff, like the game you can find on the signature, so my point of view is partial. At the same time I feel like spam, app quality and visibility is a big issue with the current marketplace structure, because it's still at 1/10 at other marketplaces size but already affected by similar problems (cloned apps, spam apps, non-content apps). I didn't expect it on a new system like wp7, but evidently it's normal.

streak continues..The New York Times official app dropped today, not too much of a biggie but its slick and for wp7 now

andycted said:
There is a trend on wp7 which is quite different than android. it's both good and bad in my opinion.
Games which are not xbox-live, even good ones, aren't really promoted on the platform. The same goes for apps that aren't 'official'.
This isn't bad per-se, meaning big companies with good resources can provide very polished good apps, like the ones you mentioned.
On the other hand, independent developer are left with their own means, with the menace of ever increasing spam and invisibility.
The 'featured' section is confined to 'official' apps like the ones you mentioned and the games section official promotion/visibility is monopoly of xbox.
While this can produce a few good standard apps, I think Microsoft could work better with the plumbing necessary for indie devs. Right now they basically have no interest in putting some boundaries between a good indie app/game and a crap/cloned/spammy one. They just mention that the 'marketplace will decide for itself'. Seems a bit too little.
Yeah I know this isn't all that weird, but seeing stuff like doodle jump on xbox live and free clones that got to the platform months earlier, that are free and actually better than the original... I feel something is missing.
Personally, seeing the problems linked with the 'free' and 'new' sections of the marketplace, it seems to me that they had the potential for the ultimate best mobile marketplace ever, and they've blown it away following previous models and standards.
All this to say that it's excellent to see all these official apps coming out (whilte the title of the thread is wrong, since it's not 'devs' that are stepping up, rather it's companies that bought in), there are a few missed opportunities to have a mix of what is good on android and ios together.
Don't misunderstand me, I know wp7 is far closer to ios than android, at least for marketplace structure. And I would still take this marketplace over others.
I just think people upstairs care too much about numbers
[disclaimer] yep, I do develop indie stuff, like the game you can find on the signature, so my point of view is partial. At the same time I feel like spam, app quality and visibility is a big issue with the current marketplace structure, because it's still at 1/10 at other marketplaces size but already affected by similar problems (cloned apps, spam apps, non-content apps). I didn't expect it on a new system like wp7, but evidently it's normal.
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You do have a valid point on how Microsoft handle apps visibility, it's a bit of a shame but I can understand that as a new platform they need to promote the known apps and games to prove that the OS is viable. Hopefully this will change soon enough and maybe the web marketplace will improve things.
As for indie devs, I think the issue too many have is that they don't try hard enough to offer something compelling and truly exciting. I generalise a lot mind you, there are lots of talented developers making WP7 apps. However when I see something like 4th & Mayor, an app so good they made foursquare remove then redesign their official app, I'm wondering why more developers aren't producing this kind of work (not to mention the 4th&M developer shares his work with whoever wants it). We also need more original content, not just clones. I mean, Chickens n' Vixens is nice and all but we knew from day one Angry Birds was coming and that it would obviously get all the attention from Microsoft and most consumers. The amount of work that went into that could have been put in something much more original, it's a bit like a waste of talent.
Then again I'm not a developer so I shouldn't criticise but from where I stand, if an app is excellent it will be recognised and featured as such.

dapoharoun said:
streak continues..The New York Times official app dropped today, not too much of a biggie but its slick and for wp7 now
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I've seen others actually like PEGI, Alitalia, Accuweather, France 24, 2 new WeightWatchers apps and more I can't remember.

No mention of WP7, but lack of apps not a weak point

It has been another extraordinary year for technology products, with companies trying to gain the upper hand in an evolving market.
Smartphones, e-readers, apps and tablets have all been vying for our attention.
Rory Cellan-Jones reviews the gadgets that made waves in 2011, with bloggers Stuart Miles of Pocket-lint and Kat Hannaford of Gizmodo UK, at London's Olympic Park.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16309042
She said, she only uses about 3 apps on any single day. Windows has nearly 75,000 now! - Just a thought.
Please don't flame this!

But the speed at which new apps are being published.. marketplace is sure going the good way

drupad2drupad said:
It has been another extraordinary year for technology products, with companies trying to gain the upper hand in an evolving market.
Smartphones, e-readers, apps and tablets have all been vying for our attention.
Rory Cellan-Jones reviews the gadgets that made waves in 2011, with bloggers Stuart Miles of Pocket-lint and Kat Hannaford of Gizmodo UK, at London's Olympic Park.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16309042
She said, she only uses about 3 apps on any single day. Windows has nearly 75,000 now! - Just a thought.
Please don't flame this!
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i'm not flaming... your article has no mention of wp7 at all (as you stated), and that puts wp7's presence in perspective for calendar year 2011. A quick search of the comments also showed no references to "wp7" for me. Maybe the fans haven't woken up yet for commenting, or don't care about the 'year in review' or overview, if you will.
A more focused user-based collective opinion about wp7's success or lack of it via adoption numbers is on slashdot, this morning:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11...el-on-why-windows-phone-still-hasnt-taken-off
there are the usual trolls and fans, but the consensus is what we've all seen debated here on xda before. give the comments a read after the 'article' and you may get some more insight as to why there was no mention of wp7 in your linked article.
happy early new year !

To be fair, he said "no mention of WP7".

ohgood said:
i'm not flaming... your article has no mention of wp7 at all (as you stated), and that puts wp7's presence in perspective for calendar year 2011. A quick search of the comments also showed no references to "wp7" for me. Maybe the fans haven't woken up yet for commenting, or don't care about the 'year in review' or overview, if you will.
A more focused user-based collective opinion about wp7's success or lack of it via adoption numbers is on slashdot, this morning:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11...el-on-why-windows-phone-still-hasnt-taken-off
there are the usual trolls and fans, but the consensus is what we've all seen debated here on xda before. give the comments a read after the 'article' and you may get some more insight as to why there was no mention of wp7 in your linked article.
happy early new year !
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vetvito said:
To be fair, he said "no mention of WP7".
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LOL why did I just know you guys will comment
Yeah, the only reason to share the video was to show that even though they accept the fact or millions of apps on different platforms, they do acknowledge like most of us that daily we only need 3 apps or so. That is what I mentioned somewhere else in the forum saying - after I moved from android, I thought with only a few thousand apps I will never find apps I used on android, but to my surprise I found everything apart from SMSbackup+ and Titanium back up. But turns out we dont have back up facility yet and hence no apps of that kind. Again my 'need' of app on day to day basis was very little so I might have found the transition easier.

amritpal2489 said:
But the speed at which new apps are being published.. marketplace is sure going the good way
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this i feel is also their downfall, most apps are crap. there is like 25 kama sutra apps, but only 2 google talk apps...
how many HD babe apps does one market place need anyhow?

The quality of apps is an issue though. My nephews got an ipod touchand frankly i was shocked how lame the games on windows phone were compared to ios ones. I think developers need to concentrate on making quality apps.

drupad2drupad said:
Windows has nearly 75,000 now! - Just a thought.
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You keep saying this, but it is simply not true. WP7 just passed the 45000 app mark a couple of weeks ago. And, depending on which site you query, the current total is somewhere between 47000 and 50000.

RoboDad said:
You keep saying this, but it is simply not true. WP7 just passed the 45000 app mark a couple of weeks ago. And, depending on which site you query, the current total is somewhere between 47000 and 50000.
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Lol sorry I keep doing that I know! I think it follows some tweet prediction when it hit 40,000 in November saying with Lumia's launch around end of Dec-early weeks of Jan it will steep to 75,000 (speculation, I know!). But again I think pocketnow tweeted recently of it crossing 50,000 mark this month? Not sure :s

i would rather have 500 QUALITY apps over the 50,000 HD Babes and kama sutra apps that the marketplace now has.
devs are waay too interested in making a quick buck with tons of low quality simpleton apps that took them 1 day to develop that they throw on the market for 99cents. when they could spend some time on making 1 really good app and selling it for $4.99 and they would probably make a lot more money. but instead, they are just looking for a quick buck.
huge problem with windows marketplace. they need to do some app house cleaning instead of just inviting anyone with $99 to put whatever app they want on the market. sure it drives up app numbers, but seriously attracts crappy apps.
look how the itunes app store was. you had to apply for an sdk license, only so many were given out and apps had to be approved. they still had a huge increase in app numbers, but the apps were a lot better quality.

I think it's not a number of apps which is the problem
It's the lack of important ones.
Skype, Opera, Google.... To name just a few.

I'm not sure I understand what makes these big names make apps for certain platforms? Is it solely market shares?

drupad2drupad said:
I'm not sure I understand what makes these big names make apps for certain platforms? Is it solely market shares?
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And quality.

doministry said:
And quality.
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quality of what?

drupad2drupad said:
quality of what?
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I think I misunderstood your previous answer.
I think those big names make apps for the platforms which they perceive as successful and profit making plus they receive all the needed dev tools.
And reach agreements..

svtfmook said:
look how the itunes app store was. you had to apply for an sdk license, only so many were given out and apps had to be approved. they still had a huge increase in app numbers, but the apps were a lot better quality.
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JFYI, WP's developers need to pay an annual fees of 99 USD to be able to submit apps to marketplace, and MS DID make some checking before the apps approved.
And I believe that either Android market or iOS appstore had the same problems with thousands (or maybe millions) of crapwares and only hundred (to thousands) of quality apps. I think you should see the whole picture by refering the ratio of good apps vs bad/crapwares then you might be able to figure out that WP is actually doing quite OK for now.
And maybe my statement is wrong because I'm not some kind of app whore (no offense means).
Cheers.

Anyone seen NBA game time? This is really pushing it, and very frustrating... :/

Lack of apps is a huge weakpoint for many people. I don't care what people say about "quality" being the issue. Most people don't even KNOW what quality even means and they use their slow Facebook and Twitter apps anyway. It's simply the lack of choices involved. If there was simply an app for nearly everything people use, people would happily switch, regardless of app quality. Once people start owning the devices and complain about quality, THEN you'll see the quality go up.
The biggest issues keeping WP down are the lack of marketing here in the US, the lack of quality handsets, and the lack of API's available to developers, who would happily make apps for a platform like Windows.

MrGaius said:
Lack of apps is a huge weakpoint for many people. I don't care what people say about "quality" being the issue. Most people don't even KNOW what quality even means and they use their slow Facebook and Twitter apps anyway. It's simply the lack of choices involved. If there was simply an app for nearly everything people use, people would happily switch, regardless of app quality. Once people start owning the devices and complain about quality, THEN you'll see the quality go up.
The biggest issues keeping WP down are the lack of marketing here in the US, the lack of quality handsets, and the lack of API's available to developers, who would happily make apps for a platform like Windows.
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There is such a discrepency with opinions about wp7. One side says they don't need apps, because wp7 has them all at the core. The other side says apps are needed and will come if/when the platform comes mainstream... but its often the same people saying both.
I've seen wp7 commercials on tv, the internet, stores, billboards, even flashing jumbotron-like LED signs on the way home from work. What I haven't seen is interest from folks. The occasional person using a wp7/zune device in the wild is so rare.

In my opinion WP7 doesn't only need apps. It sure does, but there's way more than that. Since it's a Microsoft product, WP7 should tie in deeper Windows 7, XBox, Skydrive and such. WP7 has to have more "uniqueness" than the UI.

Lets talk... Why are there so many lackluster apps on the marketplace?

I was recently pondering this question of "Why are there so many lackluster apps on the marketplace?" while I was looking into improvements for my app.
It really does seem that there are only a hundred or so, really inspiring Metro based apps on the WP7 marketplace, and Im not sure why. Even many of the developers who are active with their apps have truly un-inspiring visual apps, or downright stripped functionality. Im not sure why, granted you see a similar pattern with Android, which from what I can tell is much worse, but WHY? These developers are just one-off releasing apps, they are most commonly very active.
Just thought I would see if anyone had any input on this.

Its like that on all market places. Did you think there was over 500,000 aw inspiring apps?
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk 2

How many things
I have pondered the high number of apps for quite some time as well, but I approached it from another angle:
Think about it like this: How many different things can you possibly do with a smartphone? Well, quite a lot, obviously, but interestingly as soon as I start to enumerate, I run into problems to continue pretty soon. Maybe I can name 100 different things to "do" with a smartphone.
Now, say I forget a lot of things, and other people do other things than me anyway, and there will be new things that nobody has thought of so far, so let's take this times 10 and proclaim that you can use a smartphone for a full one thousand different things. (I would really love to see this list.)
If you cover each thing with, say, 10 different apps, so people have choice and can take the app the like, and there is healthy competition, we arrive a grand total number of 10'000 apps that make sense - ever. Anything beyond that is simply too much.
If you think 1'000 things to do with your smartphone is way too low I would challenge you to list 1'000 things that you do in your daily life, overall and in general, with your smartphone or otherwise - our lives are quite interesting, but there are limits of what we all do.
Ok, now let's be generous and throw in 50'000 different games which are not subject of things that must make sense, after all you can just invent and invent new variants of games.
That absolute upper limit of 60'000 apps or so is pretty low compared with the contents of the app stores, isn't it?

^ it is low, but you have to add in the different region apps too, different languages, and all of their variations. Thus the huge number of apps.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk 2

rbrunner7 said:
I have pondered the high number of apps for quite some time as well, but I approached it from another angle:
Think about it like this: How many different things can you possibly do with a smartphone? Well, quite a lot, obviously, but interestingly as soon as I start to enumerate, I run into problems to continue pretty soon. Maybe I can name 100 different things to "do" with a smartphone.
Now, say I forget a lot of things, and other people do other things than me anyway, and there will be new things that nobody has thought of so far, so let's take this times 10 and proclaim that you can use a smartphone for a full one thousand different things. (I would really love to see this list.)
If you cover each thing with, say, 10 different apps, so people have choice and can take the app the like, and there is healthy competition, we arrive a grand total number of 10'000 apps that make sense - ever. Anything beyond that is simply too much.
If you think 1'000 things to do with your smartphone is way too low I would challenge you to list 1'000 things that you do in your daily life, overall and in general, with your smartphone or otherwise - our lives are quite interesting, but there are limits of what we all do.
Ok, now let's be generous and throw in 50'000 different games which are not subject of things that must make sense, after all you can just invent and invent new variants of games.
That absolute upper limit of 60'000 apps or so is pretty low compared with the contents of the app stores, isn't it?
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1:Manage your bank account....how many different banks are out there.
2:Follow your local news....how many tv station, radio station, newspapers.
3:Follow your favorite sports team...how many teams out there.
4:Manage you reservations....for every hotel, rental car, airline.
5:Stream video....from every network, internet service, cable/satellite provider, your own network at home.
Now, how many tens of thousands of apps would it take just to cover those 5 functions that you can do with your smartphone?

Millions of apps
66stang351 said:
Now, how many tens of thousands of apps would it take just to cover those 5 functions that you can do with your smartphone?
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Yeah, I know, let me guestimate that there are maybe 10'000 large cities on this planet. Then you have 10'000 "Map of City x" apps, plus another 10'000 "Public Transport Time Table for City x", and again 10'000 "Coming Events in City x", and on and on.
Of course this brings up all kinds of questions, e.g. whether it really makes sense to turn all these things into an app where a website would perfectly do, but anyway, I concede you have a point.
I developped the habit to check all the new apps that appear in the Marketplace daily, and of course I see many apps of this type appear, but in my estimate at least half of the apps are just "garbage".
And what really makes me sad: Usually many days pass until I find a new app that really surprises me, an app with a real idea if you know what I mean, where somebody found something new - a rare gem of creativity. All that time spent building apps, what must amount to man centuries even, and then this meager result - it's a shame.

It's a growing thing. When Android and iOS were first released, there weren't many lackluster applications for awhile. Currently, developers are just trying to get everything on Windows Phone 7 that is already on Android and iOS...to include tools, games, instant messaging platforms, etc. Once they've caught up, then the developers will start using creativity.
It's not really a problem, just give it time

PoorCollegeGuy said:
It's a growing thing. When Android and iOS were first released, there weren't many lackluster applications for awhile. Currently, developers are just trying to get everything on Windows Phone 7 that is already on Android and iOS...to include tools, games, instant messaging platforms, etc. Once they've caught up, then the developers will start using creativity.
It's not really a problem, just give it time
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Don't you think its due to lack of API restricted by MS that not want to allow developer to work on!!

Just me maybe but i hardly even look at the market anymore.
Sent from my LG-P920 using xda premium

Well I rather lackluster apps than the other side of things shown here. Kind of explains why if you do not have one of the really popular Android phones why you may see more force closes than someone holding a SGS2.

taruian said:
Don't you think its due to lack of API restricted by MS that not want to allow developer to work on!!
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I totally agree with the API restrictions. It has kept me from making an app i really want to but on the other hand I as a developer feel that having eye candy in your app is a must. My specific type of apps for WP7 make the Android and iPhone users jealous as they dont have eye candy apps in that genre in their marketplaces. Also a lot of devs try to push many apps out for the money. Like if you include ads in your apps. The more apps the revenue you can earn as its a numbers game. So i think they rush on the design part.

vetvito said:
Its like that on all market places. Did you think there was over 500,000 aw inspiring apps?
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^This. Is there any objective evidence the amount of dross in the MSFT app store is any more than any other OS' app store?
People like to see their name in lights. It's as simple as that. Someone barely cobbles together an app with their meager programing skills and uploads it just to see their name in the app store.

sitizenx said:
^This. Is there any objective evidence the amount of dross in the MSFT app store is any more than any other OS' app store?
People like to see their name in lights. It's as simple as that. Someone barely cobbles together an app with their meager programing skills and uploads it just to see their name in the app store.
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Apple apply quality control on submitted apps. They will reject any apps that are buggy, crash or which don't serve a useful purpose. They are notoriously strict, causing quite a few famous publishing issues.
Mean while, Microsoft also have a submission possess, but not sure what it actually does? I remember reading on here about as developer that submitted 6 WP7 apps, that all just displayed a block on screen (each app was a different colour) and they all got published. A paid appstore should be no place for test apps; It's almost like MS don't care, and just want to boost their numbers..
Android market has no QA; anyone can submit anything. Most wild-west like app-store, but stuff doesn't get pulled off the store randomly like the above two.

^ you're joking about Apples QC right? That has got to be joke of the day.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk 2

whodisname said:
Just me maybe but i hardly even look at the market anymore.
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pretty the same here. For quite some time now I have found all the apps I need and I only look for new ones (or alternatives f.e. different twitter apps etc.) very rarely, maybe when "super new, awesome app blabla" is featured on some news website.
The majority of apps I use work fine and aren't "lackluster". Just 3 or 4 I wish they would make improvements/alternative app.
Of course there are many not so good apps in the marketplace but thats a problem of every device, not even only phones. just look how much crappy software or games are available for pc.