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Hope for Windows Mobile: eldorado in iPhone app store no more ! iPhone gold rush is over ! December 07, 2008 [General] | By Edward J. R. Professional developers no longer can count on Apple. It's a big apportunity for Windows Mobile developers and for the upcoming "Skymarket" - Windows Mobile application store! Vincent from Makayama writes to us in an answer to our question "how is your business with iPhone apps going?": In fact, it's not going so well and we will be developing more for Windows Mobile and Symbian next year. App Store has become a nightmare for professional developers, caused by the drive for ever lower prices, cut-throat margins and too many products. It's impossible to make a decent living with iPhone apps, unless you have a runaway success title (maybe 50 out of 5000 developers are lucky). Apple has chosen to allow a multitude of ridiculous, worthless, poorly-represented applications through its "strict" screening process, nearly all written by mediocre programmers with a dream of getting rich quick. It's impossible to find the quality apps in this catalogue with rubbish. Because no trial versions are allowed, buyers depend on reviews, which are often biased towards the negative. Dissatisfied customers are more likely to write negative review than satisfied customers are to write positive reviews. More complex apps are scrutinized by Apple and rejected on ridiculous grounds, like our 'Camera Pro' which has been in review now for 22 weeks! It has been rejected twice because we made digital zoom possible and Apple says this is an 'undocumented' feature of the SDK. So when you want to do more complex apps, you depend on the poor, limited Apple documentation. If it's not documented, it's not allowed. So let's hope Microsoft will get it's act together and puts some real competitive version of Windows Mobile on the Market, and we will be putting some nice apps in there in 2009. On Windows Mobile, you can make whatever application you make. It's much more open than iPhone. No restrictions on the use of bandwidth, no bans on VOIP or navigation, no nonsense about 'undocumented' code or 'private' libraries. But there are two things that Windows Mobile is very far behind: User Interface and Distribution. The iPhone UI is the best in the world, it's finger-friendly and you can make slick looking apps, with animations, transparency and all sorts of eye-candy. Compared to that Windows Mobile still looks and works like a miniature version of Windows 95. It's not intuitive, not fingerfriendly, too geeky for the average user. After 10 years of Windows CE development, the development tool (Visual Studio) doesn't even support such basic things as transparency, so you can't make a round button or custom shaped interface element in your apps. Let alone slick transitions. So they need a big leap forward in the UI. Second, they need an App Store: one-click downloads over the air and one-click buying. And if Skymarket is going to be the Windows Mobile App Store, they have a chance to make it better than Apple's store. Allowing end-users to download trial versions is the most important improvement it needs. To learn more about apps from Vincent's company, visit www.makayama.com ! Commentary: the myth that people can get rich quickly by making applications for iPhone app store - is over. Clearly, once Microsoft will launch Skymarket (Windows Mobile app store) everything can change and Windows Mobile can defeat iPhone yet.  Post your comment (free registration is required to post, but if you register you can edit your posts later) [ 8 Comments ]
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