So quick about me; I'm a software developer at a large company. I saw Windows 8 originally as a nightmare, but decided it was best to stay on the edge, and the best way to do that is to fully immerse yourself. To that end I upgraded my home machine to win8. I got used to it and looked at app development. Turns out it uses C# (my primary language) and win8 apps are cross platform. I bought a touch screen laptop and a win8 phone to help with the process, excited about the possibilities unlocked by easily being able to share information between devices over the net!
Well, turns out MS doesn't take kindly to the independent developer , nor to the win8 phone. Let me start by saying that I'm writing this on my phone, and I'm surprised because I can't use my phone to send messages on my usual forum; clicking the text field causes the keyboard to flash up then down and that's it. Another fun experiment was trying to move a file from the SkyDrive to my phone. I was doing this because I was trying to RDP to my home system via a 3rd party program. For some reason Microsoft didn't include a Remote Desktop program, nor did they include a file browser, both items I would have assumed would be on a phone made by the same company that not only created the worlds most popular operating (and file browsing) system but also touts how its new product line works so well together!
Now back to app development. I thought that with all this compatibility talk that the programming environment would be fluid and able to compile for all systems in one program. Nope, there are 3; normal programs, win8 apps, and win phone apps. I was disappointed, but heard more integration is coming, as is the next Visual Studio! Excitement again! Maybe this time Windows 8 apps for PC, Tablets, and Win8 phone can all be developed in the same IDE, making it much easier to develop for all 3 platforms and have app data easily shared between devices! Turns out my dream came true, but only if I pay ~$700. I thought Microsoft was trying to get more apps on Windows 8. How is charging a large sum of money just to have your tools integrated rather than separate helping that? That doesn't include the cost of getting apps up on the store after that which is $100 a month.
Point is the Microsoft has done some cool and exiting things with Windows 8 and cross platform integration. It excites me as a developer to think that I could come up with programs that are useful for me and may be useful for others that can be used cross platform holding the same info. Its very nice to be able to enter a date on my computers calendar and have my phone remind me of the appointment mid day without me having to actively transfer that data. I just save and go! That said I have no idea why Facebook is better integrated than my hardware environment, why I have no phone file system worth note, and why MS is trying to, well I'd say Nicole and dime but really its break the wallet of developers just to get integrated tools (to be fair separate tools are free) and charge them to enter the market while complaining about not having enough apps.
This phone and the whole integrated environment has a great deal of potential (haven't even gotten into Xbox integration yet!) but MS seems determined to do all it can to screw up implementation. They need to stop with these odd lockouts and the crazy charges. There needs to be more E3 moments where the users get pissed and the competition says "yeah, we won't do that bs to you." that's what changed a lot of the dumb ideas for Xbox 1 like locking down games and requiring the console to connect every 24 hours. I hope them the best, but I see this control bit continuing. Maybe Googles integrated environment will take off. Maybe that will be the jab in the gut MS needs to realize that going Apples route of locking down a users property (it is ours, we bought it) is a dumb idea.
Well, turns out MS doesn't take kindly to the independent developer , nor to the win8 phone. Let me start by saying that I'm writing this on my phone, and I'm surprised because I can't use my phone to send messages on my usual forum; clicking the text field causes the keyboard to flash up then down and that's it. Another fun experiment was trying to move a file from the SkyDrive to my phone. I was doing this because I was trying to RDP to my home system via a 3rd party program. For some reason Microsoft didn't include a Remote Desktop program, nor did they include a file browser, both items I would have assumed would be on a phone made by the same company that not only created the worlds most popular operating (and file browsing) system but also touts how its new product line works so well together!
Now back to app development. I thought that with all this compatibility talk that the programming environment would be fluid and able to compile for all systems in one program. Nope, there are 3; normal programs, win8 apps, and win phone apps. I was disappointed, but heard more integration is coming, as is the next Visual Studio! Excitement again! Maybe this time Windows 8 apps for PC, Tablets, and Win8 phone can all be developed in the same IDE, making it much easier to develop for all 3 platforms and have app data easily shared between devices! Turns out my dream came true, but only if I pay ~$700. I thought Microsoft was trying to get more apps on Windows 8. How is charging a large sum of money just to have your tools integrated rather than separate helping that? That doesn't include the cost of getting apps up on the store after that which is $100 a month.
Point is the Microsoft has done some cool and exiting things with Windows 8 and cross platform integration. It excites me as a developer to think that I could come up with programs that are useful for me and may be useful for others that can be used cross platform holding the same info. Its very nice to be able to enter a date on my computers calendar and have my phone remind me of the appointment mid day without me having to actively transfer that data. I just save and go! That said I have no idea why Facebook is better integrated than my hardware environment, why I have no phone file system worth note, and why MS is trying to, well I'd say Nicole and dime but really its break the wallet of developers just to get integrated tools (to be fair separate tools are free) and charge them to enter the market while complaining about not having enough apps.
This phone and the whole integrated environment has a great deal of potential (haven't even gotten into Xbox integration yet!) but MS seems determined to do all it can to screw up implementation. They need to stop with these odd lockouts and the crazy charges. There needs to be more E3 moments where the users get pissed and the competition says "yeah, we won't do that bs to you." that's what changed a lot of the dumb ideas for Xbox 1 like locking down games and requiring the console to connect every 24 hours. I hope them the best, but I see this control bit continuing. Maybe Googles integrated environment will take off. Maybe that will be the jab in the gut MS needs to realize that going Apples route of locking down a users property (it is ours, we bought it) is a dumb idea.
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