Microsoft: Just Stop The Crapware Already
You know, Marketplace was going all fine and dandy and then bam – it’s loaded with tons of shit now. I mean, there’s a real estate app for every city with more than 5 people in it and about 1,000 apps that are in German or something in the Marketplace. I know Microsoft doesn’t want this in the Marketplace but wasn’t this inevitable? Back in February Microsoft lifted the limit on free apps from 5 to 100. At the time I wrote “Nothing wrong with increasing the cap but at 100 it’s an invitation to spam with free apps. Not sure I love this concept because the last thing we want is the Android Market.” Well I don’t think we’re there yet but if this continues it’s a bad bad thing.
I can’t find new apps. Since last week in order to find apps I need to scroll through a few pages of feces to get to the legitimate apps first. This hurts devs as it’s a lot harder to find the real apps. And on phones the categories are new, free, etc but not ‘paid’ so you can’t even sort it out that way and there’s no ‘delete crapware’ option obviously. It also hurts all of us as end users because good apps are getting buried.
I’m content that Microsoft isn’t going to follow any specific advice I give them so I won’t even bother with that. They have enough people to think of a solution, but bottom line – fix it before it really is broken. Don’t sit on your thumbs for weeks debating how to deal with this. Implement something and you can refine it over time but don’t let good devs and good apps be the ones to pay the price.
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Sad to see.
Totally agree with you on this David. I hope they have a fix for it soon.
100% Agreed. It is a pain to go through all that. Microsoft should create a new category for real estate!
Yep, for several months I have taken a glance at the 100-200 apps added to Marketplace almost every night. Now, its near impossible to sort through 700-1000 crap apps added every day to try and pick out the few worth talking about. I expect that some good apps are going to get lost and that is sad.
Agreed. It’s looking like a dumpster lately, with all the trash showing up.
I took a look at the marketplace on the computer last night for the first time. I have to say, it’s a sea of shit. I can’t believe that you WP7 guys have to put up with that. How DO you find the good stuff?
It all started with the My MP apps from Britain!! Who wants politicians on a smartphone anyway!!
There can be several ways to segregate these apps. Since most of these ‘My MP’ and ‘Real Estate’ apps are location specific, MS could add a category for that. Of course, some transport apps etc will get buried in it but it will still be easy for someone to go in the Location Specific category and search for, say, Seattle and choose from his MP, Senator, Metro rail, real estate or local discount coupons app. Another method could be for Microsoft to legislate that names of all such iterations of the same app will start with a symbol, like ₢ or Ω, and enable alphabetical listing of apps.
When Microsoft had made different marketplaces for different countries for Windows Mobile, everyone was crying for an International Marketplace. Now don’t cry when you see German, Korean and Chinese apps. Hahahaha…. Rather, they could make another category for ‘Language’ apps and sub categorise them with different languages. Anyway, I think Microsoft will wait till we get to a respectable figure like 50,000 – 75,000 apps in the Marketplace before reining in these rouges. Such a course of action won’t be entirely without logic and reason either.
I scrolled through the new section looking for a good app to buy and got drowned in a sea of spam. To make a long story short i backed out of the marketplace with out even seeing an app that wasn’t spam.
Jim, Chris L, Murani – Don’t be lazy. Scroll, scroll, scroll…..
I’m so glad other platforms don’t have this problem. One reason more to avoid Windows Phone 7.
@Hotmail Alias: I don’t mind the scroll but here is the problem. I scroll, scroll, scroll till I finally come upon a diamond in the rough. So I open the app to take a peek only to find that it is in German, or has a single screenshot of the signin screen. Click back and I am back at the beginning again, so more scroll, scroll, scroll, trying to remember where I left off. You know the real estate app only uses about a dozen images, repeated over and over, and the My MP apps are even harder to get your bearing. Viewing on the phone is even worse as you can only few the first couple hundred apps, which are often all the same thing.
I will keep trying but know for sure I am missing gems. Found a TXT app yesterday completely by accident that syncs seamlessly with Dropbox and has some slick tile flipping going on (like Mango) but has a couple bugs that the developer is already correcting. A way to filter apps would nice.
Couldn’t agree more. Quality over quantity people…
The answer to the problem is called ‘Handango’. Or Mobihand. Or SPB Warehouse. The way to buy software is directly from the developer or through a 2nd hand re-seller. Marketplaces are all garbage.
@Chris L:
It’s ten times better than the garbage pail that is Android’s market, and you’re just trolling like an idiot.
But yes, the article is right, over the last month too much garbage is being let through.
DAMN ARE THOSE SPAM???? I THOUGHT IT WAS LEGIT….
@ed:
They are all legit apps. We’re calling them (‘Real Estate’ and ‘My MP’ apps) spam because all those HUNDREDS of apps could easily have been made into ONE app, but their hordes just crowd the marketplace and eclipse the others in their wake.
@hotmail thank you, I download a Ohio real estate then it was asking for my phone number.. UNINSTALLED IT. THANK YOU