- Aug 30, 2011
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I always somewhat understood smaller developers who feel that Windows Phone is not worth their time yet due to the relatively small number of users. Seems kind of reasonable in a lot of cases, I can see why they may not want to invest money and manpower into an app that's not going to generate much return on revenue or circulation. I get that. I also know many WP users who get a reply from a developer citing "lack of demand" for not publishing an app for Windows Phone probably feel a little like their platform is being discriminated against. I've felt that way at times as well, but my common sense always told me that the thought was ridiculous, that developers didn't have anything against the platform per se, it was just a logistical and financial thing. Anyway, I did feel that way - until today.
Today I received an email that proved to me that some companies simply don't give a rip about Windows Phone regardless of how easy of hard it would be to provide an app. See, there is an app that I shall not name from a certain company that I used extensively on Android. It's basically a portal to a service they provide, so they don't really make any money off of it anyway. When I first came back to Windows Phone I wrote an email to this company asking about it and, as you might expect, got a reply saying that they had no plans to develop one because there was no demand. Well, the funny thing is now I know they were lying through their teeth. Before they responded I had done some research of my own on the web and came across the resume of a young developer who had just graduated college last year. One of the things on his resume was that he had worked the summer of 2013 on an internship for this same company developing a version of their app for Windows Phone with a team of other interns. I was able to contact this developer who is now working full time for the company in a different department and he was more than glad to check on whatever happened to their project for me. He got back to me shortly after the company had responded to my email and said they told him that they had shelved it for the same reason they told me - "lack of demand". When he pressed the issue by telling them that he knew the app was complete and wouldn't require any work on their part, they really couldn't explain why they were holding it back and never deployed it. Just for grins I checked Google Play and the same app on Android has only gotten just over 3,000 downloads in the last couple of years. That's it. If they were worried about lack of demand they should reevaluate their commitment to Android as well. By those standards if they got only a quarter or even slightly less of that number on Windows Phone (somewhere around 500-700) which I think they could easily do, then I don't see how that wouldn't be considered a roaring success in relation to the number of Windows Phone users vs. Android users.
So, long story short, I used to believe that the idea of blatant disdain among some companies and developers for Windows Phone was a myth, but I don't any more. From now on every time I'm told by a company that we're not getting an app based on "lack of demand" I'm going to wonder a little.
Today I received an email that proved to me that some companies simply don't give a rip about Windows Phone regardless of how easy of hard it would be to provide an app. See, there is an app that I shall not name from a certain company that I used extensively on Android. It's basically a portal to a service they provide, so they don't really make any money off of it anyway. When I first came back to Windows Phone I wrote an email to this company asking about it and, as you might expect, got a reply saying that they had no plans to develop one because there was no demand. Well, the funny thing is now I know they were lying through their teeth. Before they responded I had done some research of my own on the web and came across the resume of a young developer who had just graduated college last year. One of the things on his resume was that he had worked the summer of 2013 on an internship for this same company developing a version of their app for Windows Phone with a team of other interns. I was able to contact this developer who is now working full time for the company in a different department and he was more than glad to check on whatever happened to their project for me. He got back to me shortly after the company had responded to my email and said they told him that they had shelved it for the same reason they told me - "lack of demand". When he pressed the issue by telling them that he knew the app was complete and wouldn't require any work on their part, they really couldn't explain why they were holding it back and never deployed it. Just for grins I checked Google Play and the same app on Android has only gotten just over 3,000 downloads in the last couple of years. That's it. If they were worried about lack of demand they should reevaluate their commitment to Android as well. By those standards if they got only a quarter or even slightly less of that number on Windows Phone (somewhere around 500-700) which I think they could easily do, then I don't see how that wouldn't be considered a roaring success in relation to the number of Windows Phone users vs. Android users.
So, long story short, I used to believe that the idea of blatant disdain among some companies and developers for Windows Phone was a myth, but I don't any more. From now on every time I'm told by a company that we're not getting an app based on "lack of demand" I'm going to wonder a little.
not only I'm gay but also get this treatment... lol ...
Just thought I would throw out another plausible reason.
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