Could They Make It Harder To Find New Windows Phone Apps?
As you know, we try to inform you of any new games/apps that hit the Marketplace that we think have a broad appeal. Obviously, this requires regularly checking the Marketplace to see what’s new and the more I do it, the more I find it frustrating. Simply put, the ‘glance and go’ memo didn’t make it to the team that put together the Marketplace experience, both on the phone and within Zune. Here are the steps needed to view new apps:
On the phone it goes like this:
- Open Marketplace
- Tap ‘Apps’
- Swipe the screen once to leave the featured app page
- Select ‘All’
- Swipe twice or tap on the tap to ‘new’
In Zune the process is like this
- Open Zune
- Go to the Windows Phone section (because Marketplace defaults you to music)
- Click on any category (since view all isn’t available initially)
- Click on View All in the categories
- Sort by release date
Of course, when you do it on the phone it takes time to lead each page, even the initial pages with the subcategories. It seems like they propagate those fields each time and it’s not stored locally (to the cloud, with each swipe).
No matter how you look at it, there are at least 2 extra steps to actually viewing new apps and because of that third party websites are a necessity to fill the whole that MS left. Yes, MS has a website to view WP7 apps- it shows 3,000 apps when there are over 4,000 to give you a sense as to how well they maintain it. So I often find myself going to wp7applist, MarketplaceBrowser or AppHab, but WP7AppList is my go to (I find it’s the most up to date and easy to browse).
Anyway, it’s silly that we have to go through this each time we want to try to find new apps. And this is in addition to the list of gripes I’ve already stated about searching for apps in Zune (which has yet to receive an update even though Macs did get an update). So please Microsoft, make it easier on us to give you money. That’s a simple request.
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@Doug Smith: I bet the iPhone did it:) OK at leat I have some idea what my pattern is…but the end result is the same – I keep doing what I do and you fix it:) it keeps you busy though
I’m frustrated when I click my search button while in the marketplace that I am searching the whole marketplace, among apps and music. I would love to be able to search just within apps, and even better, search within specific categories.
@D-Money: they sometimes forget that they also made Bing…it’s sad
wp7applist.com works better for me as well. Just lost Flight Control in the Marketplace (saw an update available and the app is nowhere to be found by searching). At least wp7applist gives you a link to download which generally works. No idea why they don’t show in Marketplace search. Add in the whole “we want to mix music, albums, and Apps together” thing in the search and it’s even more frustrating.
I don’t usually have a lot of trouble with the Marketplace, but searching for Apps is definitely one of those problems.
I don’t see why we need a third party in order to accurately navigate through the applications. I’d like sorting for: Date Added, Popularity, Price, categorical (as mentioned above i’m looking for an app not a song), etc.
Not sure what is going on with Bing Visual Search but don’t think it has anything to do with new apps not making it on the list. Yes, it says 1 or 3,000 but apps that were added as recently as two days ago are already there. I linked nearly 100 apps using Bing Search yesterday and all but two were available.
One app has been out about two weeks and the other one I purchased about a month ago. In contrast, there were two apps that were released earlier this week (don’t remember what day) and while the were not available when I searched around 11pm they did show up when I finally was finishing up sometime after 2am.
I searched the two missing apps by author in Bing, and while they showed other titles, the two apps I was searching for were not there. So there is either a hard limit of 3,000 that needs to be fixed or something else is filtering out specific apps for another reason associated with the way they were categorized or something. With all eyes at Microsoft on WP7 these days, you would think someone besides us would be looking at this.
I agree – we shouldn’t need a 3rd party to give us good search results. We shouldn’t need to use Bing Visual Search, either. Really hoping this comes in the January Update, but considering I don’t even know where to submit bug/feature requests, who knows? MS’ server products and similar get connect.microsoft.com. Not sure what to do w/ WP7 and related.
Besides, when I search the marketplace, I should be able to find the newer apps. I can navigate to wp7apps, find the link, and install it, but it doesn’t show up when I search the Marketplace. Very inconsistent.