*rant and frustration* Model Release and Square app situation vs Apple app store.

[errole]

A big question I been wondering about is with people saying no quantity but quality of apps. The lack of apps on phone and windows 8 is really sad. I use 2 apps one for model and contract signing with model release on iPad and iPhone and Square on iPad and iPhone. They sync 100% beautiful on both and even I found a resume app that you can input info find quick design templates and send it off. Now I haven't even found 3 of those main apps in the store and I contacted the developers for all three and they told me no. I know we say oh we got quality apps but truly we don't have those apps
That are needed. We can say cool got games and music and 1000 calendar and weather apps, but I rather have apps that are truly important to my taste. Even another app in particular houzz is major app on ios and android and we don't even have that.

 

[explosive0]

I understand your frustrations.

 

[Reflexx]

A big question I been wondering about is with people saying no quantity but quality of apps. The lack of apps on phone and windows 8 is really sad. I use 2 apps one for model and contract signing with model release on iPad and iPhone and Square on iPad and iPhone. They sync 100% beautiful on both and even I found a resume app that you can input info find quick design templates and send it off. Now I haven't even found 3 of those main apps in the store and I contacted the developers for all three and they told me no. I know we say oh we got quality apps but truly we don't have those apps
That are needed. We can say cool got games and music and 1000 calendar and weather apps, but I rather have apps that are truly important to my taste. Even another app in particular houzz is major app on ios and android and we don't even have that.

It's true that having the vast majority of apps doesn't matter if it doesn't have the one that you need. Just like having only a few apps doesn't matter if it happens to have all the ones you need.

Unfortunately some devs don't feel that it's worth their time to invest in a WP app. They feel that their customers who have WP aren't in sufficient enough quantity to go through the trouble. They figure it's easier to make customers buy different devices.

However, there are other businesses that are more forward thinking. They will invest their resources early because they'd rather inconvenience themselves than the customer. They figure that if a platform is large enough to register as more than a blip, and shows a solid trajectory of growth, then supporting it as a matter of "when" instead of "if." So why make it a pain for the customer?

 

[errole]

True

 

[rodan01]

I'm seeing the same thing. The app gap is growing, not shrinking. As people do more stuff with their phones they need more apps. Not the big ones, but apps related to their personal needs and preferences.
This kind of apps is harder to get because they appeal to a small share of user base, so you need a big user base to make them economically viable. There is no hope of getting most of these apps anytime soon.

A couple of years ago the small platforms were hoping that the mobile web and HTML5 apps could help them to solve this problem, but It seems native development won and cross platform development failed.

So, I don't know how Microsoft is going to solve this problem, the only option seems to be supporting Android apps. They could use the same apps published in the Nokia X store.
I hope Microsoft is actively working in porting the Android runtime to Windows to be released in Windows 9, but that would be another year.