A developer bets on UWP and loses (article)
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Pretty good writeup by a developer who made a popular UWP app, but just couldn't monetize it enough to stay in business. Touches on the ways in which UWP and especially Windows Mobile were botched up by Microsoft.
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@cartman82 said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
Pretty good writeup by a developer who made a popular UWP app, but just couldn't monetize it enough to stay in business.
Hm, Looking forward to seeing how the article explains why that sentence wouldn't have been the same with the word UWP left out.
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@FrostCat said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
Looking forward to seeing how the article explains why that sentence wouldn't have been the same with the word UWP left out.
Well, some of the things the developer is complaining about are to do with the way that MS has handled their side of things. Without UWP, for the app to be popular it would have been on a different platform or two and wouldn't have had that fuckery from MS to worry about. They'd have other problems, but would at least be standing a chance of not getting the platform vendor self-sabotaging or blocking them from being found in the relevant app-store…
Well, the blocking might've happened with the others. Who knows?
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@dkf said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
Without UWP, for the app to be popular it would have been on a different platform or two and wouldn't have had that fuckery from MS to worry about.
Xamarin has been free for a while now. They could release it on all the stores they want. Microsoft is helping them do that.
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@dkf One complaint was a hidden "we're not going to ever promote certain types of apps". That's a legit complaint but I think Google and Apple also engage in a similar form of non-promotion.
It sounds like his biggest problem, other than trying to get rich off a mobile app in the first place, was targeting Windows Mobile instead of Android/iOS, tbh. I mean, anyone who's paid any attention for like the last 5 years knows there's no significant user base there.
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So Microsoft did all that ruckus to get desktop users to upgrade, but just kinda forgot to tell mobile users?
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@anonymous234 said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
So Microsoft did all that ruckus to get desktop users to upgrade, but just kinda forgot to tell mobile users?
I wonder whether Microsoft just didn't have the same capabilities with mobile phones as it did with desktops to push out the update without that special app.
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Also:
The reason? As far as I understand, and as insane as it may sound the first time you hear it:
Microsoft wants to control Windows Store app merchandising.
Once you think about it for a bit, it makes a little more sense. But still, I don’t think at this point in time Windows Store is in a state when worrying about partially losing control of app merchandising should be on anyone’s agenda.
WTF is app merchandising?
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@anonymous234 I can only speak for my carrier, but they never provided updates for their WP8.1 handsets, and never sold WP10 phones, so there was no path to WP10.
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@anonymous234 the article seems to be saying that MS backed off on plans to make the upgrade available to a lot of 8 and 8.1 phones.
I liked Windows Mobile, 5 years ago. Windows Phone seems nice, too--the few people I've seen who tried it, all seemed to like it, maybe even more than Android/iOS. But MS seems to have just given up on the market, so developing for it seems foolish.
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@mott555 If the phone itself was capable of being upgraded, there was supposed to be some kind of developer mode you could enable that would let you bypass the carrier's lack of updates.
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@FrostCat said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
@mott555 If the phone itself was capable of being upgraded, there was supposed to be some kind of developer mode you could enable that would let you bypass the carrier's lack of updates.
I might have been willing to do that, but 99% of typical cell phone users would not.
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Meh. It's their own fault. It's been obvious for years now that "this town ain't big enough for the three of us;" Android and iOS have the mobile market locked down tight, and no one's going to create a third-party ecosystem that achieves non-trivial market share.
Anyone who can't see this deserves exactly what they get.
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@FrostCat said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
It sounds like his biggest problem, other than trying to get rich off a mobile app in the first place, was targeting Windows Mobile instead of Android/iOS, tbh.
And it doesn't even have to be an xor.
@FrostCat said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
But MS seems to have just given up on the market, so developing for it seems foolish.
The market gave up on them, and most places that stock phones refuse to stock them, and always have. But Microsoft is planning to keep making them: it's a wonderful platform, and for certain users, there is really no better OS.
@mott555 said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
I might have been willing to do that, but 99% of typical cell phone users would not.
Carriers are evil. They've been trying to kill WP since WP8 was first released.
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@masonwheeler said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
It's their own fault.
Windows Mobile had a significantly higher market share 6-7 years ago than Windows Phone does now.
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@FrostCat said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
Windows Mobile had a significantly higher market share 6-7 years ago than Windows Phone does now.
How is this relevant, as the app in question has not been around for 6-7 years?
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@masonwheeler said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
How is this relevant
Windows-for-phones market share's been declining for ages. Anyone who is paying the slightest bit of attention and wants to make money by selling a lot of copies of their app (or by IAP, or whatever) should realize Windows is not the proper target.
I mean, mobile's already a bad target for monetization, even with the popular OSes!
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@cartman82 I have some sympathy for this guy but:
Windows 10 Mobile update will be available to all Windows Phone 8.1 users
That second assumption was really foolish. Has he literally not even HEARD of the Android ecosystem and how long it took most Android 2.x phones to get upgrades, if they EVER did?
... which isn't to say that Microsoft didn't botch the Windows 10 upgrade, because they certainly did. My Lumia 1020 isn't supported, for example, even though the virtually-identical 1520 is (the ONLY difference is screen size and camera quality). What a crock of shit.
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@Magus True, but they are just as evil regarding other platforms, especially Android. A lot of carriers won't upgrade older phones, in order to push replacements, and will cancel you if you root the phone to do it yourself. I have a Galaxy S4, which runs 5 just fine and supposedly will run 6 if you don't mind it chugging a bit, but T-Mobile stopped upgrades at 4.4.
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@ScholRLEA That's one of the reasons I buy Nexus phones. At least with them I know that if the phone ever stops receiving updates it's because Android dropped official support for it and it's not my carrier being a dick.
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@ScholRLEA said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
True, but they are just as evil regarding other platforms, especially Android.
They sell those. They actively keep windows phones out of their stores.
Microsoft lets you force your phone upward with the insider program, so carriers can't pull their stupid OS stuff as usual, so they don't carry the phones.
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@e4tmyl33t I just buy unlocked phones SIM free, and make sure I don't buy from manufacturers with histories of dropping support early
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@FrostCat said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
Hm, Looking forward to seeing how the article explains why that sentence wouldn't have been the same with the word UWP left out.
The difference is, this is a top app in the UWP world. One of the supposed "winners", featured in magazines, high-rated, the whole shebang.
Android and iOS are brutal, but if you make it there, you made it. You can support a small software company. Not so much in the MS app store, it seems.
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@Jaloopa said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
I don't buy from manufacturers with histories of dropping support early
It could be worse, Apple purposefully pushes software to phones that the hardware can't handle to shove people into upgrading.
Fuck that.
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@Magus said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
Microsoft lets you force your phone upward with the insider program, so carriers can't pull their stupid OS stuff as usual, so they don't carry the phones.
They also don't let carriers install default applications to the phone that can't be uninstalled.
They've been extremely customer-friendly and carrier-hostile, which hasn't helped things.
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Seriously, if you ever went into a store that carried Windows phones back when those existed, you could be sure a 'helpful' employee would be there to tell you to buy something else.
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@ScholRLEA said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
and will cancel you if you root the phone to do it yourself.
Who supposedly does this? Neither AT&T nor Sprint do. Source: me, who's rooted phones on both networks.
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@FrostCat T-Mobile supposedly will, though they deny that it's the reason for those cancellations.
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@cartman82 said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
The difference is, this is a top app in the UWP world. One of the supposed "winners", featured in magazines, high-rated, the whole shebang.
The article says both that MS blocks certain types of apps, including what this is, an app that reviews other apps or whatever, and that the volume was too low to make the "top app" list.
I wouldn't be surprised if you told me Google and/or Apple do the second one, too, where if your app has a 4.9 rating, but only 5 people ever rated it, it doesn't make the top ten chart.
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@Magus said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
Seriously, if you ever went into a store that carried Windows phones back when those existed, you could be sure a 'helpful' employee would be there to tell you to buy something else.
Actually, that's not true--I went into an AT&T store around when...let's say WP7 came out..and the carrier gladly showed me one of the two or three models they had. Of course, this was before the bottom, such as it was, dropped out on the WP market.
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@ScholRLEA Seems like a great way to get out of a contract.
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@FrostCat Yeah, I guess that was more a WP8 thing.
But around the time of WP8.1, all of them stopped carrying the phones except AT&T.
It may beat the iPhone in several markets, but in the US, people have been actively discouraged by the people selling the phones for years now.
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@Magus said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
But around the time of WP8.1, all of them stopped carrying the phones except AT&T.
Sprint still--nominally--sells a couple, or they did last I looked for them, but they're 8 or 8.1 phones and thus several years old.
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@FrostCat Verizon now sells only the LG Lancet, a phone I've never heard of, and only online. I got one of the last Icons they had in stock just as they were removing them all from the stores.
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@FrostCat said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
your app has a 4.9 rating, but only 5 people ever rated it
Wouldn’t you need at least seven people to rate it to get 4.9?
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This is the only site on the Internet where you can post something about Windows Phone, and have actual Windows Phone users, who actually bought and sometimes even still use WP, chime in.
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@Gurth said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
@FrostCat said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
your app has a 4.9 rating, but only 5 people ever rated it
Wouldn’t you need at least seven people to rate it to get 4.9?
What if the app's rating system is a Discourse plugin?
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@mott555 Then every time someone rates it theyd get 504 OK.
Filed under: Or was it 502 OK... I forget.
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@e4tmyl33t said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
@ScholRLEA That's one of the reasons I buy Nexus phones. At least with them I know that if the phone ever stops receiving updates it's because Android dropped official support for it and it's not my carrier being a dick.
QFT. Also Nexxi have awesome third party support due to being so open and easy to develop for. The only ones that might have better support are the OnePlus/Cyanogen phones.
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@ScholRLEA said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
@FrostCat T-Mobile supposedly will, though they deny that it's the reason for those cancellations.
I've had a rooted Nexus 7 on TMO before and never had that happen. Then again, it might be related to Samsung's stupid Knox crap or something
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@FrostCat said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
@dkf One complaint was a hidden "we're not going to ever promote certain types of apps". That's a legit complaint but I think Google and Apple also engage in a similar form of non-promotion.
Could be, doesn't really matter for his point.
It sounds like his biggest problem, other than trying to get rich off a mobile app in the first place, was targeting Windows Mobile instead of Android/iOS, tbh. I mean, anyone who's paid any attention for like the last 5 years knows there's no significant user base there.
Nope. They're problem was believing Microsoft that Windows 10 would be rolled out the correct way. Microsoft failing to deliver made the market for Windows 10 UWP apps completely unsustainable.
Which is kinda sad, because it shows lack of consistency and care for developers that Microsoft has been showing lately: .NET core api breaking in the RC stage, their inability to settle for a desktop development platform for years now.
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@Magus said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
@ScholRLEA said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
True, but they are just as evil regarding other platforms, especially Android.
They sell those. They actively keep windows phones out of their stores.
Microsoft lets you force your phone upward with the insider program, so carriers can't pull their stupid OS stuff as usual, so they don't carry the phones.
They can't do that with iOS too. They sell iPhones, though.
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Never be an "early adopter" when you can't afford to lose the bet
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@kt_ said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
They can't do that with iOS too. They sell iPhones, though.
And Windows can be installed in other manufacturers' products.
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@Gurth said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
Wouldn’t you need at least seven people
Maybe. Must be evidence of people cheating the rating system somehow.
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@sloosecannon said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
Then again, it might be related to Samsung's stupid Knox crap or something
I rooted a Note 2 with Knox on AT&T.
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@kt_ said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
their inability to settle for a desktop development platform for years now.
Oh yes.
They developed their most successful new product (VSCode) using an open source tech maintained by their competitor (electron, github). All the while, trying to convince rubes to use their own cross platform app tech.
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@cartman82 Wait... in what does GitHub compete with Microsoft?
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@masonwheeler It's kind of a competitor to Visual Studio Online. Kind of. A bit. I guess.
I don't even know what "electron" is other than the dictionary definition.
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@blakeyrat said in A developer bets on UWP and loses (article):
I don't even know what "electron" is other than the dictionary definition.
Software to package a web application as a native executable.
It can be used for example to make a native application from any webpage.