4 ms·

> Microsoft doesn't have a large existing Windows Store business to protect, This is how you GET a large existing Windows Store business.

flohofwoe 5y ago
It's not like Microsoft hasn't tried very hard in the last 10 years to emulate the iOS business model, but I guess Windows users don't like walled gardens.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- oezi 5y ago
  But they messed up so bad with the Windows store. It is beyond belief: - By including Candy Crush and other bloatware in the store, the store started with a bad reputation already. - By allowing manufacturers to define apps you cannot uninstall via the store, this infuriated any power user. - By no allowing to delete any items from your "purchase history" you could never try out any free apps without them contaminating your history. They did so to prevent people from losing their purchases, but this was just stupid with free apps. - Discovery in the store was a joke. Search results showed apps with less than 100 installs. Descriptions and screenshots of apps are often so bad that there is no way to figure out what an app does. - Not finding a way to offer legacy apps in the store was such a fail, it is incomprehensible. It is 2021 and end users still have to download applications from CNet and Sourceforge. A security nightmare. Don't get me started on UWP and the UIs from hell caused by it. Finally, there is absolutely no reason that the Windows store couldn't have been what Steam is now. Just MS incompetence in their vision of where to start. -- Edit: It seems legacy apps are coming to the store with Windows 11. Yeah! Let's see how they mess up this time.
  - ljm 5y ago
    I don't think it helps that MS have been trying to build new UI and app development frameworks for the past several years, each one with varying capabilities. I've lost track, I think UWP is the latest one but it's not UWP any more, or something? It just seems harder to build and sell software that has that same quality look-and-feel that many MacOS apps have. I just wonder what they'd be capable of if they had a separate OS that didn't have to concern itself with backwards compatibility. It'd be a monumental undertaking to do all that from scratch, not really worth it from a business standpoint, but it'd be interesting to see what they'd come up with if they started off with Linux.
- alickz 5y ago
  I think this is similar on Mac. Anecdotally I don't know anyone who uses the Mac App Store to install apps. Everyone I know just downloads the .dmg from whatever website.

flohofwoe 5y ago

It's not like Microsoft hasn't tried very hard in the last 10 years to emulate the iOS business model, but I guess Windows users don't like walled gardens.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
oezi 5y ago
But they messed up so bad with the Windows store. It is beyond belief: - By including Candy Crush and other bloatware in the store, the store started with a bad reputation already. - By allowing manufacturers to define apps you cannot uninstall via the store, this infuriated any power user. - By no allowing to delete any items from your "purchase history" you could never try out any free apps without them contaminating your history. They did so to prevent people from losing their purchases, but this was just stupid with free apps. - Discovery in the store was a joke. Search results showed apps with less than 100 installs. Descriptions and screenshots of apps are often so bad that there is no way to figure out what an app does. - Not finding a way to offer legacy apps in the store was such a fail, it is incomprehensible. It is 2021 and end users still have to download applications from CNet and Sourceforge. A security nightmare. Don't get me started on UWP and the UIs from hell caused by it. Finally, there is absolutely no reason that the Windows store couldn't have been what Steam is now. Just MS incompetence in their vision of where to start. -- Edit: It seems legacy apps are coming to the store with Windows 11. Yeah! Let's see how they mess up this time.
- ljm 5y ago
  I don't think it helps that MS have been trying to build new UI and app development frameworks for the past several years, each one with varying capabilities. I've lost track, I think UWP is the latest one but it's not UWP any more, or something? It just seems harder to build and sell software that has that same quality look-and-feel that many MacOS apps have. I just wonder what they'd be capable of if they had a separate OS that didn't have to concern itself with backwards compatibility. It'd be a monumental undertaking to do all that from scratch, not really worth it from a business standpoint, but it'd be interesting to see what they'd come up with if they started off with Linux.
alickz 5y ago
I think this is similar on Mac. Anecdotally I don't know anyone who uses the Mac App Store to install apps. Everyone I know just downloads the .dmg from whatever website.