There is no app gap

[Krystianpants]

Look at all the choice. http://i.imgur.com/dOF478R.png

 

[Eddie Mendoza]

haha well played

 

[adrian1338]

haha - https://forums.windowscentral.com/e...h%2Fapps%3Fq%3Dtraffic%2Brider&token=bahxTEC4

Well at least he hardly wants information:
Capabilities
Use your device network services
Use your music
Use the media items that are currently playing
Use any of your Windows Phone sensors
Access your browser
Use an anonymous Microsoft account
Use information about your device
Use your location
Use the photos in your media library
Use your phone
Use data stored on an external storage device

 

[tgp]

Look at all the choice. http://i.imgur.com/dOF478R.png

Look on the bright side: it increases the total number of apps available in the Store! :amaze:

 

[Krystianpants]

Look on the bright side: it increases the total number of apps available in the Store! :amaze:

The worst part is each developer has more than 1 fake app. It's just hordes of fake apps. MS thinks people care about numbers so much that they will let anything through. I'm going to make an APP that displays a picture of a pickle and flood the store with different names. "Check a pickle, check.this.pickle, look.a.pickle" I bet it would get through.

Either these are trolls doing it on purpose because of how easy it is, or these apps are stealing info with all the crazy permissions they ask. This is a huge problem and MS is just going to get to a point where the store can't be fixed anymore.

 

[tgp]

The worst part is each developer has more than 1 fake app. It's just hordes of fake apps. MS thinks people care about numbers so much that they will let anything through. I'm going to make an APP that displays a picture of a pickle and flood the store with different names. "Check a pickle, check.this.pickle, look.a.pickle" I bet it would get through.

Either these are trolls doing it on purpose because of how easy it is, or these apps are stealing info with all the crazy permissions they ask. This is a huge problem and MS is just going to get to a point where the store can't be fixed anymore.

I've read about the quandary Microsoft is in here. It is indeed of value to them to have large numbers in the Store, but to clean it up would be devastating to the numbers. Pick your poison.

Google has had their share of issues with this too in the Play Store, but they've done a lot of cleaning over the last year or two, and it is much better now. Google has an advantage in that they don't have to play the numbers game like Microsoft does.

Apple always has kept tight control of their Store. However, even though they do not have so many fake duplicates, reports are that half or more of the apps have never been downloaded. (Although this is probably true of all the Stores.) This means that the total number of 1.5 million (or whatever it is) apps may not be as valuable as it seems.

In short, I think it is the consumers' fault that Microsoft has to inflate the numbers somehow, or even consider the total number of apps in the Store for the sake of the number. It is much more accurate to judge on what is actually there as far as good quality, useful, and popular apps. And admittedly, Microsoft's Store does fall short there. Personally, I'd be pleased if the App Stores had only 100 apps, with one obvious caveat: that they're the apps I want!

 

[Kevin Rush]

May I ask, where do you see all these fake apps? I'm a long time Ipaq, Windows Mobile, Windows phone user and have never seen this when I go to the store on my phones. It must be a web site that you access from a computer browser. I can't think of a reason that I would do that. I would think that the average everyday common person would visit the store on their phone. That is the easy way to download to the phone, right?

I'm just puzzeled.

Oh, yes, fake apps are bad and Microsoft should ban them.

 

[smsmith1975]

May I ask, where do you see all these fake apps?

Search for Traffic Rider in the store. When the results show up, tap "Show All". Then you'll see the same in the image posted by the OP.

 

[PepperdotNet]

May I ask, where do you see all these fake apps? I'm a long time Ipaq, Windows Mobile, Windows phone user and have never seen this when I go to the store on my phones. It must be a web site that you access from a computer browser. I can't think of a reason that I would do that. I would think that the average everyday common person would visit the store on their phone. That is the easy way to download to the phone, right?

I'm just puzzeled.

Oh, yes, fake apps are bad and Microsoft should ban them.

Seriously? Just open the store and search "traffic rider" and there are 41 "apps" and 27 "games" most of which are fakes. And this is just one example.

 

[Manmikey]

Wouldn't it be nice if someone employed by Microsoft and is responsible for mobile/ apps/ or whatever had the Balls to come on this thread and explain firstly why this is allowed to happen in the first place and secondly why they dont clean it up

 

[anon(9538491)]

lmao, a couple of days ago I had reported an app which was being used to advertise the Android version of the app. There were about 5 apps with similar names (some ended with a comma others with a period, etc) despite writing in the report that there were 5 of those apps under different publishers (possibly fake publishers), they just deleted the one I had reported...

 

[Ed Boland]

For what it's worth, the "real" Traffic Rider is actually pretty cool on iOS (and I'm sure Android as well)

 

[PepperdotNet]

For what it's worth, the "real" Traffic Rider is actually pretty cool on iOS (and I'm sure Android as well)

Is one of those in the Windows store the "real" one, or are they all fake?

 

[Kevin Rush]

Seriously? Just open the store and search "traffic rider" and there are 41 "apps" and 27 "games" most of which are fakes. And this is just one example.

Yah Seriously.
?
So I went to the store (on my phone) and as you suggested, I searched for "traffic rider". The search only returned 24 total apps and only two actually had the name "traffic rider". One of them was "Traffic Rider" and the other was "TrafficRider@:" Nine of the others had either "Traffic" or "Rider" somewhere in the name. There was one "Crazy Traffic Rider Crash Cr". All the other search results had totally different names without either word, so must have been similar types of apps. The ratings for the 27 apps ranged from 0 to 16,000 and the stars ranged from 0 to 5.

Is this what people are concerned about as not legitimate? All 27 were free, so no one would be cheated out of their money by accidently purchasing a fake "Traffic Rider" app.

I was just trying to understand the "concern". I must say, I still don't see the problem. If I was looking for "Traffic Rider", I wouldn't be fooled by anything that I found except the one named "Traffic Rider". Is that your point, is that one fake? It only has 9 ratings and 4.5 stars.

Where are you seeing all the other "Traffic Rider" apps?

Just offering up another point of view.

Best wishes.

 

[anon(9538491)]

Capabilities
Use your device network services
Use your music
Use the media items that are currently playing
Use any of your Windows Phone sensors
Access your browser
Use an anonymous Microsoft account
Use information about your device
Use your location
Use the photos in your media library
Use your phone
Use data stored on an external storage device

I think this already serves great concern. And the fact that they are free doesn't serve as an excuse to mislead users IMO.

Btw, if you download and install most of those, it will show you a webpage (youtube) to a video of the game, not the game itself (misleading)

 

[Keith Wallace]

haha - https://forums.windowscentral.com/e...h%2Fapps%3Fq%3Dtraffic%2Brider&token=OSAEyxed

Well at least he hardly wants information:
Capabilities
Use your device network services
Use your music
Use the media items that are currently playing
Use any of your Windows Phone sensors
Access your browser
Use an anonymous Microsoft account
Use information about your device
Use your location
Use the photos in your media library
Use your phone
Use data stored on an external storage device

Might as well have thrown in accounts whose names are Social Security Numbers and a means of selling your soul for in-game tokens.

 

[neo158]

I would rather have quality over quantity. What I mean by this is have a smaller selection of apps from legitimate developers than thousands of fakes and rip offs trying to cash in on a popular app on other platforms.

 

[tgp]

I would rather have quality over quantity. What I mean by this is have a smaller selection of apps from legitimate developers than thousands of fakes and rip offs trying to cash in on a popular app on other platforms.

Yes, and so would everybody else. The issue we have is that people tend to look at the overall number of apps available. I do not know how many apps the Windows Store claims to have, or how many of them are fake, but let's assume that if Microsoft was to do some house cleaning, half of the apps would be gone. So, instead of 600,000 apps, we now have 300,000. Even 600K isn't a lot by today's standards, but it sure sounds better than 300K.

Someone from the "other side" considering WP might say, "600,000 apps? That's half what iOS/Android have, but a lot of theirs are garbage anyway. I can probably find what I need." As opposed to "300K? A quarter of the apps? There's no way that's gonna work!"

 

[Krystianpants]

Yes, and so would everybody else. The issue we have is that people tend to look at the overall number of apps available. I do not know how many apps the Windows Store claims to have, or how many of them are fake, but let's assume that if Microsoft was to do some house cleaning, half of the apps would be gone. So, instead of 600,000 apps, we now have 300,000. Even 600K isn't a lot by today's standards, but it sure sounds better than 300K.

Someone from the "other side" considering WP might say, "600,000 apps? That's half what iOS/Android have, but a lot of theirs are garbage anyway. I can probably find what I need." As opposed to "300K? A quarter of the apps? There's no way that's gonna work!"

It's all in your advertising. MS could say "we have 100,000 quality apps. We screen so fakes and other useless apps do not get in your way of your experience, a bllion apps means nothing when they cause grievance for users".

Honestly advertising a clean app store would still be good. Every user knows that android/ios don't exactly have 1 billion quality apps. Most users look for very specific apps when considering platform change. 600,000 doesn't matter to them, they want to know are the apps they use there, and they aren't. It's all fluff.

 

[Paisley Pirate]

Every time I hear the phrase "app gap" - I point the person who says it to this (now old) article.

Almost a million fake apps are targeting your phone | Computerworld

This is the reality of the "app gap" - are there apps from some companies not available on some phones? Sure. That said, there are a lot of really bad apps not available on some phones too...

And with the advent of better browsing tech, the web based site apps for many places is better than an installed app anyway...