Go Broke Writing Metro Apps

Microsoft wants to push Windows 8 in the phone/pad direction with Metro and Metro applets. They promise developer riches via their AppStore. Clearly this model is already beginning to fray for a lot of developers who took this direction on Android and now iWidgets:

http://mobilephonedevelopment.com/archives/1396

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It seems that iOS is going the same way as Android with the number of free apps growing at the expense of paid apps. 88 percent of the top-ranked 250 iOS applications are now free.

The problem is that more free apps get used and hence these are the ones recommended to others. This has a self-marketing effect. While Android developers have endured this for a long while it’s only been relatively recently (this year) that iOS app developers have had to resort to advertising or in-app purchases.

One question is why people won’t pay for apps. Alternatively, are developers at fault having lowered their prices to the point they have reached zero? I believe the main problem is that most apps actually have very little value. Most are ‘information’ apps that just provide a more convenient way of viewing things that are already available free via web sites. Dumbed down apps have resulted in dumbed down prices.

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With the low market share of Phone 7 and trends like this on better received platforms, is anyone really going to invest much effort into Metro?

Platform churn can be a killer as well. Spend 6 months getting something marketable on Phone 7 and maybe sell it for 2 years until "Phone 8" ("New and improved - with dramatic technology shift!") comes out and your sales dry up and put you at Square One again.

Will there even be a Metro in "Windows 9" when it arrives in 2 or 3 years? Can you say Desktop Gadgets? Active Desktop?

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Originally Posted by dilettante

...Active Desktop?

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Totally agree. Just a reminder of that $%#@ already gives me headach!

I actually totally agree with you dilettante. Most apps are nothing but junk apps. Given the choice between using a good app though that's free but with ads, and a paid-for app without; I'll take the paid-for app. Part of the epidemic though is, many times, there isn't a "paid" version to even buy!

So Microsoft wants to jump on the apps-wagon with Windows 8. Personally, I could care less as I won't be doing much programming for it if any. Heck, I didn't even climb on board the "we want to make .NET UI design as ugly and convoluted as web-pages" WPF wagon either.

I suppose Microsoft just saw this as a market they were losing out on, the "skim" they can take off any sales at their own "app store."

Moving this to PCs doesn't seem to make sense though. I assume they looked at the advantage a Windows NT tablet has over the competition (mostly tons of software running in the normal PC environment) and said something like "let's try to get what the other guys have too."

No, it makes sense. Microsoft is trying to build a unified platform that'll work on everything from a gamer's monster PC to a bookstore's underpowered e-reader tablet. Perhaps not a unified back-end, but certainly a unified front-end.

"App Stores" are how they envision the evolution of the PC software industry. Certainly Steam, Battle.net, iTunes and the like are the front-runners to this model - a unified interface where you can browse, try, buy, download, install, manage, upgrade, and launch software from. It's simply the next evolution of the PC operating system.