4 ms·

WinPhone8.x is a fantastic mobile OS. The interface is great. I've dealt with some bugs since switching to the developer preview, but that's to be expected, and

by jarcane 12y ago

WinPhone8.x is a fantastic mobile OS. The interface is great. I've dealt with some bugs since switching to the developer preview, but that's to be expected, and my experience running production code was always rock solid. But the app situation is abominable, and getting worse. The Xbox program seems to have been all but abandoned. Microsoft seems to have largely given up even monitoring the app store; half the top/new games on the lists for the last several months have been blatantly pirated material, either blatant copies of whatever iOS/Android fad is running at the moment, or actual emulator ROMs of old console games running in a buggy, half-broken wrapper. They don't even have an actual category for reporting copyright infringement on the report form. They've also made some missteps on a fair few occasions regarding their own apps, especially with the move to 8.1; replacing or breaking the existing functionality like the Xbox Games portal and the Music app. On the technical side, there's also some issues regarding app support and limitations on both hardware and software. Manufacturers have to agree to very strict tech specifications in order to license WP, so very few other than Nokia have ever bothered to take them up on it. WP apps are heavily sandboxed and limited in a way reminiscent of pre-multitasking iOS, and the official line from MS seems to be that the only acceptable way to build WP apps is in C# with .NET on Visual Studio. Period. Very grudgingly, HTML5 apps are supported. Other options are possible, but largely only through workarounds, which often are grossly undocumented or hacky. Even MS' own other languages, like VB.net and F# are not officially supported, save as libraries in the latter case. (though again in the latter case, MS seems to not believe anyone should want to build full apps in pure F# at all.) The OS and the interface themselves are great, and some of those limitations are no doubt part of why by forcing a more predictable environment. But a lot of it just seems to be MS repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot, and I dread to think how much worse it would get if MS had any actual leverage on the market.

V-2 12y ago
If they cared to see their app ecosystem grow, they wouldn't charge developers 100$ (which is actually 1$ more than this greedy evil empire of Apple does :)) for a licence you need even to install your app on your own darn phone
- jarcane 12y ago
  I was really aggravated by this. You can't even test shit locally without the license, VS throws a fit and demands you buy one, and then even if you cancel it it flags your install to nag you relentlessly to buy the bloody thing over and over again forevermore.
  - V-2 12y ago
    Remember "Developers! Developers! Developers!"? :)) Whatever happened to it This uninviting attitude of theirs was one of the reasons why I ultimately became an Android dev (once I decided to move into mobile apps), even though I had C# / WPF background so picking up Windows Phone would be the most natural next step... And Java admittedly sucks in compare to C#
- minthd 12y ago
  Really ? Their OS really shines in low cost devices aimed at the developing world(it's supposed to be much better and cheaper than whatever android can achieve). I would imagine a $100 is a substantial barrier for developers there.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - tartuffe78 12y ago
    In my experience developing for both, Android is much easier to develop for. Part of this is the 3rd party services that support Android (Crash logging, analytics, etc.), but even the Play Store's crash report dashboard is so much better than the half-baked crash reporting the Windows Phone and Windows Store have. Unless you are developing for iOS you can't have all of the devices your users might have, being able to solve issues remotely is huge. Especially when you are dealing with hardware issues on all of the Windows hardware out there.
- mahouse 12y ago
  I think that's for free nowadays.
aceperry 12y ago
Part of the problem with the app situation is due to MS themselves. They've treated the independent developer as a second class citizen, compared to large corporations. Large companies get access to undocumented apis and much more consideration and technical support than indie devs. It's easy to see that indie devs are second class citizens in the MS app space.
pjc50 12y ago
Indeed; my wife has a Windows phone and loves it, especially the built in approach to organisation / calendars / contacts / unified social media view. She uses almost zero third-party apps on it.
knd775 12y ago
It should get better after Windows 10 comes out. First party applications, including xbox, are getting revamped and third party apps should be even easier to make. Hopefully it will turn out that way.

by jarcane 12y ago

V-2 12y ago

If they cared to see their app ecosystem grow, they wouldn't charge developers 100$ (which is actually 1$ more than this greedy evil empire of Apple does :)) for a licence you need even to install your app on your own darn phone

jarcane 12y ago
I was really aggravated by this. You can't even test shit locally without the license, VS throws a fit and demands you buy one, and then even if you cancel it it flags your install to nag you relentlessly to buy the bloody thing over and over again forevermore.
- V-2 12y ago
  Remember "Developers! Developers! Developers!"? :)) Whatever happened to it This uninviting attitude of theirs was one of the reasons why I ultimately became an Android dev (once I decided to move into mobile apps), even though I had C# / WPF background so picking up Windows Phone would be the most natural next step... And Java admittedly sucks in compare to C#
minthd 12y ago
Really ? Their OS really shines in low cost devices aimed at the developing world(it's supposed to be much better and cheaper than whatever android can achieve). I would imagine a $100 is a substantial barrier for developers there.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- tartuffe78 12y ago
  In my experience developing for both, Android is much easier to develop for. Part of this is the 3rd party services that support Android (Crash logging, analytics, etc.), but even the Play Store's crash report dashboard is so much better than the half-baked crash reporting the Windows Phone and Windows Store have. Unless you are developing for iOS you can't have all of the devices your users might have, being able to solve issues remotely is huge. Especially when you are dealing with hardware issues on all of the Windows hardware out there.
mahouse 12y ago
I think that's for free nowadays.

aceperry 12y ago

Part of the problem with the app situation is due to MS themselves. They've treated the independent developer as a second class citizen, compared to large corporations. Large companies get access to undocumented apis and much more consideration and technical support than indie devs. It's easy to see that indie devs are second class citizens in the MS app space.

pjc50 12y ago

Indeed; my wife has a Windows phone and loves it, especially the built in approach to organisation / calendars / contacts / unified social media view. She uses almost zero third-party apps on it.

knd775 12y ago

It should get better after Windows 10 comes out. First party applications, including xbox, are getting revamped and third party apps should be even easier to make. Hopefully it will turn out that way.