Cheap and easy ways for Microsoft to give Metro apps a boost
Summary: Microsoft needs to get people into its app store and get them downloading apps. The best way to do this would be to give all Windows 8 users some complementary credits to spend in the store.
Here's a follow-on question from a reader related to yesterday's post: "How Microsoft can salvage Windows 8 before it's too late".
I share your concern that Windows 8 could flop, but as a developer -- iOS, Android and Windows Phone -- I'm also worried that Metro apps, which I'm planning to also develop, could also be a washout. What do you think Microsoft do to help give Metro apps a boost?
If I were planning to develop apps for Metro, I'd be worried too. If Windows 8 fails to get the appropriate traction, and if developers shun the Windows App Store, then application makers will have put effort into the platform for nothing. There's nothing that anyone can do to salvage the platform because the audience won't be there.
The only way I can see that Microsoft could save Metro apps if Windows 8 flops is if the Metro platform is backported to Windows 7 -- perhaps as part of a service pack. I don't mean the entirety of the Metro user interface, just support for app and perhaps a Start Screen launcher that could run as a separate application.
Touch support will be non-existent, but that doesn't matter since not all Windows 8 systems will support touch. I think that touch support will be in the minority for the entire lifespan of Windows 8, and Metro apps can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse.
Opening up Metro apps to Windows 7 users would give developers a real reason to start developing. It decouples the success of these new style apps from the success of Windows 8 itself. Using Windows 7 as a platform for Metro apps would give it an instant user base of millions -- and that's the sort of thing that makes developers sit up and take notice.
But even if Windows 8 is successful, there's still a chance that Metro apps could flop. Windows has had a software store of sorts since Windows Vista -- it was called Windows Marketplace -- but it died because consumers didn't used it. For Metro apps and the Windows Store for the forthcoming operating system as a whole to be a success, people actually have to use it.
People are already familiar with app stores. Android has an app store, Apple has an app store, and a whole host of other platforms have their own stores. But Microsoft can't rely on this in order to get traffic to its store. It needs to encourage people to use the app store.
The best way to do this is to get people using the app store right from the beginning. Microsoft could do this by both highlighting free apps and even offering every Windows user free credits to spend in its app store. Microsoft encouraged those who downloaded the Consumer Preview and Release Preview of Windows 8 to do this by making all the apps free, but I'm talking about taking this idea and making it mainstream. (OK, not even Microsoft can offer all apps for free, but a few store credits would go a long way and the cost to Microsoft would be minimal.)
This would get people signing up to the store, looking around, clicking and downloading stuff.
There's no substitute for getting people into a store, looking around and using it. It's by far the best advertising that Microsoft could give its app store.
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Talkback
Correct
Plan "B" as in "Let me be your Backdoor man" plan
In the meantime and two plugs away, the rest of us - saints and sinners and sods alike - can suffer the forced integration quietly. B b b brilliant.
Actually ....
Windows 7 does support touch, just not to the extent that Windows 8 will. I owned a touch based laptop for years (it had Vista on it when I bought it).
@Adrian
Not.
I think it's fairly safe to say that Microsoft have made a smart move with Win8 in integrating an app store into the OS and mandating this store as the only place to find and download Metro apps. Most PC users own smartphones and most are more than comfortable downloading apps for their phones.
Therefore, so long as Microsoft brings the users' attention to the fact that there is a store with a growing library of exciting apps, games, tools, etc. at their fingertips, then users will be more than happy to download the apps that they want.
We're already seeing some great apps published in the store like the awesome MetroTwit and the BEAUTIFUL CocktailFlow. It'll only be a matter of time before there's a huge library of apps and games that meet users' needs and interests.
Remember, today, Windows has a total user-base numbering around 1.3Bn people world-wide - that a heck of a user-base that could dwarf Apple's and Android's app stores over the next couple of years.
I thought it was a good analysis...
@Socratesfoot
Sorry that you feel so aggrieved that you carry with you so many grudges. Sure, Microsoft has screwed up a number of times in the past, but, let's be frank here: One does not build a company with $74Bn in revenues during a painfully dire financial environment and in the face of unprecedented competition on almost every front ... by abusing all your customers.
Microsoft has, in the last 7-8 years, behaved pretty admirably, continued to create some pretty compelling and successful products, and learned that it has to work a lot SMARTER in order to build products that keep it in the upper echelons of tech companies industry.
This fall's product lineup alone is a clear indicator that Microsoft is back, its hungry, its not scared to take risks and innovate.
Welcome back, Microsoft. Now let the games begin!
Let the games begin
"I think it's fairly safe to say that Microsoft have made a smart move with Win8 in integrating an app store into the OS and mandating this store as the only place to find and download Metro apps. Most PC users own smartphones and most are more than comfortable downloading apps for their phones."
"Smart" as in Apple-like copy-catting? And yet you question Adrian's "deep insight"?
Also and perhaps more importantly, why chuck this "newfangled" (read: fruit-fangled) concept into their entire user base's face, particularly their core desktop and enterprise constituents? Is forced adoption a way of guaranteeing metro "immersion" along with uptake, all the while hedging their wishful bets?
As I see it, if they had chosen to push an apps store for small form [smartphone and tablet] use exclusively, there would be far less resistance -- and cynicism.
"Microsoft has, in the last 7-8 years, behaved pretty admirably... [...] Welcome back, Microsoft. Now let the games begin!"
Meanwhile but not far away, Ed Bott's latest post suggests otherwise: In a public statement, Microsoft admitted it had "fallen short in [its] responsibility" to update Windows 7 Service Pack 1 [with a previously mandated and agreed upon "browser ballot"] "due to a technical error."
Oh those dang technical errors. I mean, really EU. C'mon. [*face cracks*]
PS. And who is Jason?
For the most part...
Apps will sell well on tablets, but porting Metro back to Windows 7 won't help, if you are running a desktop, because the apps are full screen only.
That is my only real disappointment I have with Windows 8. A lot of applications I used to have sitting in their own window in a corner of the screen have now bee "appified" and are now full screen and I can't have them running in a corner of the screen, whilst I am working on other things.
On a tablet, that is not a big deal, the screens are generally too small to allow proper multi-tasking, apart from widgets, which are live tiles in Metro. But, for example, I used to keep solitare open in a corner of the screen (filled about a 5th of the screen, partially overlayed by other windows, then, when waiting for another task to finish, I could pop it to the front, play a couple of card, whilst keeping an eye on the running task in the background, then tuck it away again.
With Metrol it is full screen, or at best 2/3 1/3 split, which is fairly useless for most desktop applications I use.
The #1 predictor of W8's success will be . . .
My biggest complaint is MS completely ignoring the 20% prepaid market here in the U.S. Please stop conceding it to Android, MS. Do something bold!!!
Will Microsoft "Buy back"
False argument...
Keep Windows 7 clean!
That Metro UI? Maybe has the powa! to restore Media Center. lulzz
What will they download
NOTHING WILL SAVE METRO....
http://asia.cnet.com/is-windows-rt-having-some-trouble-62217304.htm
That relegates Microsoft's entire mobile strategy to the trashbin where it belongs.
Adrian
I read an article on Yahoo today about a guy that showed the flaw of bloggers and how they'll write about anything for clicks, even if the source they have made everything up. I then read another article about how analysts are predicting Windows 8 will be a successful hit.
Sounds to me I get better news from actual journalists that cite their sources than I do from some Apple and Android fanboy that just rants about everything.
Well...
I say positive things
Yet, you have never written any positive comments about Microsoft,
Pot meet Kettle.
Microsoft needs to promote the advantages of Windows RT
1. Windows RT allows you to run two apps side by side. There is no doubt about this being a big advantage over an iPad.
2. Live Tiles - many people don't realise just how powerful and flexibile live tiles are. They are more than just app launchers and they are more than just panels which display live information. The two other main features of live tiles are: 1. They can work as data filters allowing you to efficiently organise your data (eg, pin a contact to your start screen and you can instantly access only the data relating to that person, plus see live notifications only for them), and 2. With supporting apps you can pin shortcuts to specific parts of an app (which can also display live data). For example, if you have an airline app with a boarding pass, you can pin the shortcut Live Tile direct to the boarding pass - saving you having to first launch the app and then click further to get to the boarding pass.
3. The new feature called Contracts which allows all apps to share data between them, even if those apps don't know anything about each other. This is such a powerful feature that it will bring huge benefits to how we work with apps, because it will allow much more efficient and seemless ways of working and using apps. MS don't need to promote this feature to end users - only to developers. What MS need to promote to end users are the benefits this brings by showing examples.
4. Killer Windows RT apps - MS needs to promote apps like OneNote MX, which is simply awesome!
Games Games Games
Some nice gfx with DX11, something that could also run on phones, local multiplayer support (i.e. you and your buddy sitting on the el-train could play against each other), etc. They could put out a wager, first game in the app store to get 1 million downloads gets a million dollars. I bet that would get a lot of game developers interested.